Doctor Who s2 rewatch continues!

[tenlittlebullets]

- The Cybermen episodes are still rubbish, but this time through I am terribly amused that they were so obviously the test-drive for Sound of Drums. Heads of state! Giant show-off aircraft! Near-future police state dystopia! Humans being controlled by their own mobile technology! And eventually being chopped up into monsters in the name of evolution and survival!

- Things that are oodgy: Rusty, your lips say "Mickey is in no way replacing his parallel-universe counterpart," but the emotional core of all your parallel world storylines is just a little too centered on neatly and conveniently making sure there aren't two copies of anyone running around long enough for you to have to deal with it, then shoving people at their alt-universe loved ones who are still grieving their loss.

- Mickey, you are way too good for those ninnies you're travelling with.

- Ten, whenever you get the urge start shouting at people in a tantrum of moral outrage, it is a nigh-infallible sign that you need to shut your fucking mouth and get some fucking perspective.

- Pete Tyler, whatever your other failings, you are a flawlessly sensible human being when it comes to spacio-temporal anomalies giving you a chance to meet the daughter you never got a chance to know. Wherever Rose got it, it certainly wasn't from you.

- So I had never actually watched The Idiot's Lantern before--it was one of two s2 episodes that were missing from the pile of NuWho I swiped off filia_belialis. Based on its reputation and the other Gatiss-penned episodes, I went in with the lowest expectations possible. And it is a pretty stupid episode, but possibly because of the low expectations I found it surprisingly delightful.

- Rose! Rose is surprisingly delightful in this one. Her obvious relish in pwning the abusive dad made me grin, and then I might've just combusted at the adorableness of her sudden, shit-eating grin on "Only an idiot would hang the flag upside-down!" and the way she ducks and skips out of the room. And then she goes investigating and being v. badass, and this is an excellent bit of character development to get her from woeful incompetence at the beginning of the season to utter BAMFery at the end.

- Things I appreciate: when the show takes a sensitive and sensible approach to coded rape references. Am I the only one who reads the scene in the inspector's office that way? It could be read in a very shippy "OH NOES U TOUCHED MAH ROES, HULK SMASH" way, but it seems to me like the thing that's really making Ten go ballistic is that the unknown baddie took Rose--cheeky, compassionate, blossoming-badass, wonderfully full-of-life-and-agency Rose--and mindraped her and dehumanized her and left her helpless in the street like a victim. Even thoughout the subtle-as-falling-anvils development of the Ten/Rose romance, he explicitly refuses to get territorial over her being in danger; I think his "HULK SMASH" reaction and his insistence on "they just left her there in the street" is because he's been pushed from generic moral indignation into something he finds horribly, viscerally wrong.

- Gatiss has parent issues, doesn't he?

- Other things I found surprisingly delightful: the final showdown was practically ripped from a Three serial, wasn't it? Communications towers and whirring tape reels and ~uber advanced~ technology for the 1950s (or 60s, or 70s). And the Doctor concocting ridiculous gadgets and climbing a radio tower as bad electricity SFX flash around him. Bless.

- Things that were absolutely, unquestionably stupid about this episode: Ten's Elvis hair. Oh honey, just because you snogged Madame de Pompadour doesn't mean you have to adopt the hairstyle in her honor.

Edit: Halfway through Impossible Planet and lol, retroactive continuity is the best thing ever. At the beginning, the captain shows Ten and Rose the black hole they're orbiting, and is all "Brace yourselves, some go mad at the sight." Fifteen minutes later, they're witnessing a mighty civilization's star system get consumed by the black hole, and Ten goes "No, leave the viewscreen open a while longer, I promise I won't go mad."

"How do you know?"

And he just grins. Because he was one of the ones who ran, of course.

Comments

[elisi]

Ten, whenever you get the urge start shouting at people in a tantrum of moral outrage, it is a nigh-infallible sign that you need to shut your fucking mouth and get some fucking perspective.
*snerk*

Things I appreciate: when the show takes a sensitive and sensible approach to coded rape references. Am I the only one who reads the scene in the inspector's office that way?
I had not thought of it like that, but I like it very much. Thank you. It makes Ten's shout-y-ness much more bearable.

Mickey, you are way too good for those ninnies you're travelling with.
Interestingly, I am currently working on a fic with Martha, Mickey, River and Eleven, and not one where they're all best chums, but one with a TON of conflict & issues, and amongst other things Eleven and Mickey will have a heart-to-heart which I am ITCHING to write, because damn, there's some good stuff to work with. (I tend to use fic as a way to deal with meta stuff.)

[10littlebullets.livejournal.com]

Yeah, ordinarily I am not a fan of shouty indignant Ten but in this case I think it works as a personal reaction. Death, danger, and a high redshirt body count are par for the course in DW, but the show is usually more reserved about inflicting skin-crawlingly traumatic things on its leads, so it is interesting to see how that's handled when it comes up.

That is a VERY interesting and potentially explosive Team TARDIS. In more than one sense of the word. Please tell me Martha and River get to blow shit up together? Pleeeaaaase?

[elisi]

Yeah, ordinarily I am not a fan of shouty indignant Ten but in this case I think it works as a personal reaction.
You have improved the episode immensely.

That is a VERY interesting and potentially explosive Team TARDIS. In more than one sense of the word.
Heh. You have no idea.

Please tell me Martha and River get to blow shit up together? Pleeeaaaase?
... It's not that kind of story, really. You'll see what I mean. (It started out as just crack, but then suddenly I was blindsided by a completely new idea and everything took a sharp left turn.)

[10littlebullets.livejournal.com]

Heh, it would probably work better if Ten hadn't spent the whole Cybermen two-parter getting shouty and indignant, only to come up with something skin-crawlingly traumatic--turning off the emotional inhibitors in the Cybersuits--to save the day. But it doesn't matter because it was only redshirts affected, right? It's not like that was the real Jackie Tyler or anything. *heebie-jeebies*

Edit: ...although I suppose it's not like s2 is particularly well-known for maintaining emotional continuity from episode to episode or anything.