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beccaelizabethMy reactions to previous season finales have been... mixed. Season 1 and 2 I loved right up to a particular point and then went *facepalm* about, though I've since reconciled with season 1. Season 3 I feel has major structural problems. Season 4? ... combined several reactions, but avoided a lot of what I hated from season 3 and added a whole lot of cool.
I'd usually be watching the Confidential right now but I missed the start cause they don't schedule a loo break between one and tother, which I feel is unfair. So anyway, rather than jump in 10 minutes late, I'll wait for it to record and take the time to just react to the episode.
That was absolutely entirely on crack. It turns out the *rudeword*s who told the plot in comments last week had in fact got it right, so I weren't as surprised as I would wish to be. But even then I only knew the hand regeneration thing and the 2 Doctors. The DoctorDonna was entirely a surprise. Got to love that.
Dalek Caan's comments now kinda make sense. Got to love that too. He said something about 3 last week that didn't make sense whichever way you turned it, and then suddenly it did. Awesome. Plus, importantly, the Doctor's act of compassion in New York didn't just create the problem, it solved it too. Which leaves you to wonder why Caan would bring out Davros... but it's both timey wimey and about him having lost his mind, so, you know, makes enough sense. Mostly. Sort of.
Oh, speaking of spoilers - I apologise to anyone I may have spoiled via plot bunnies. I didn't say 'Martha and Mickey join Torchwood!' because I had secret insider knowledge. I said it because there's room for a medic and a tech and we have two of those established already. I think is why anyway, maybe someone told me and I forgot. Anyway, I only said it as a plot bunny because I can totally see things to do with them. Though thus far most of my bunnies are about Mickey and Ianto and, er, shagging. *sigh*
... I worry, though, with the increased load of Doctor Who characters, we're going to lose even more of what I love about Torchwood, the darker edge... but then I think we lost the vast majority of it in season 2. Now they think it's about heroes. Bit standard, then.
Ianto and Gwen were saved by Tosh :-)
Time Lock is the same words used about the Time War. Huh.
As per usual the how do they get out of that for the cliffhanger is a bit cheap, cause they move on quickly.
Mickey and Jackie turning up was awesome. No, be more specific, Jackie turning up was awesome. Jackie with a great big gun blowing up Daleks. Absolutely hugely awesome. And the baby! And him on the nursery run! And they all go back to that universe!
... I realise I'll offend any number of Rose fans, but *please* let her stay gone this time. It's not that I... okay, actually, it is that I never much liked the character. But it's *mostly* because she's the character where she's all whiny about the Doctor and must be with him and I was here first and... it feels like she's turned into what her most annoying fans writer her as in fanfic? Oh I should so rephrase that if I don't want to get eated by the internet... No, I mean, Rose as a sensible independent woman saving the world, yaay, but Rose as a whiny clingy jealous woman who was *building the machine to get back to the Doctor even though he'd told her it would destroy both universes*... oh please let her stay gone. And how was she treating Mickey? Like he's nothing. He's got nothing to go back to? After how long in that world?
... the slash goggles must wonder what happened to Ricky's boyfriend...
... but has to admit the R in that solves it adequately without further trauma.
So... Rose gets a half human Doctor who will actually say he loves her and does kissing.
... I should probably not say out loud that that bit made me nauseous, should I?
... it's just... it's not that the Doctor does kissing, I like that the Doctor does kissing, it's that the story is set up so Rose can't be happy unless the Doctor does kissing *and even then* runs after the one that's leaving. Grow a bloody backbone woman! Make your own life!
The fact that being half human was a surprise squelches the TV movie fairly well, yesno? Maybe?
... the Rose stuff annoyed me. Sorry. It's like she thinks she's living in a romance novel *and* that romance is more important than two universes. When Ianto keeps the woman he loves alive even when she's dangerous then everyone yells at him. When Rose endangers multiple universes people treat it like it's cute.
Yeah, it only worked after the Dalek device broke the walls a bit. But she was trying. After being told what it would cost.
Mickey and Jackie used the same tech. Mickey's going to fit right in at Torchwood. Destroy world, oops!
I can see why Rose got that ending. Her story was set up to need that ending. And that's the part I really don't like.
It's also freaky that the Doctor falling in love requires him growing old and dying. I'm sorry, but that's really not part of the definition. REally.
So then there's Donna's ending. Donna who got the Doctor's mind. All his knowledge, plus a little spark of her own, so she was even better. That was pretty superb. But it's the exact same problem as John Smith with the fob watch, once the Time Lord is poured in John Smith - or in this case Donna the temp - ceases to exist. So there's a reason that had to be undone. But to also undo everything in her life back to the Christmas thing? That's...
Okay, here's how I'm reading it - Donna reminded me of all those people I'm at college with who got to a certain point in their lives, looooong after high school, and realised that in order to do more with their lives they needed to know more, so they seek out the teaching they needed. That, to me, was what Donna was doing with the Doctor. And she was brilliant. She saved the universe. Because of all she learned from the Doctor, and she learned everything. Once she'd learned everything he had to teach, she put her own spin on it and was better than the teacher. And that's what it's about, taking all this stuff that other people knew and you didn't and pouring it all in your head for several years and then putting it all together to do what nobody else could do with it. So up to there it's brilliant. And it's not like Rose saving the world from caring, or Martha saving the world by telling them her boyfriend will fix it, it's using the knowledge-power. Exactly like him.
... and then it won't fit in her head and he chooses to wipe it all away and leave her back in the life she had before she went looking for more knowledge.
On two levels, this feels dead wrong. There's the thing where having too much knowledge kills you, which is exactly exactly opposite of true. And there's the thing where I'm having a great deal of difficulty not reading this in a gendered way.
Not least because the other Doctor, the one Rose kept, was *also* part human and *also* had all the Doctor's knowledge and... keeps it. And, okay, will die, but at the usual speed.
So it's like... this guy has too much knowledge to fit into girl brain. Girl brain too small.
And I'm sure if you put it in those words the writers would never ever have meant it that way, but... give me a different way to read it, please? What were they thinking? I can't see it. I can't find a way of looking at it that doesn't feel like... well, it could be classist, poor little temp can't handle Doctor knowledge. But it's... Wrong. Knowledge is good, learning is good, and here's Donna with the ultimate in direct to brain downloads so why isn't it good?
I can't find a way of looking at that as doesn't make it the wrong ending. Big time.
And the fact the Doctor took *all* knowledge of him... that doesn't even make any *sense*. It was only the new download that wasn't fitting in. The stuff she learned from experience was *hers*. So it's really wrong.
And after she's said she wants to stay with him forever it is the kind of thing that's necessary to get rid of her, but honestly, she couldn't just change her mind? The Sarah Jane Adventures tag line is something about life on Earth is an adventure too, yesno? So Donna was looking for the shiny but without the Doctor not finding it. Okay. But after she's travelled with him a while she has the hang of it. Now she can come back to Earth because it's pretty cool here too. Learn how to walk in the dust and still see it the way the Doctor does, as such a special place that with all the universe to choose from he wants to be here. Isn't that a good ending too?
And it wasn't just that she lost the knowledge. He took it from her. It couldn't just have faded? Though that would make it natural that she couldn't keep it all, rather than a man's choice to take it from her, so... not in fact an improvement, no.
The insistence on keeping the Doctor the Lonely God, emphasis Lonely, that's what makes it so Donna can't have Time Lord knowledge. Otherwise she could be Romana and have worlds of her own to save. It doesn't elevate the Doctor to be the only one that knows what he knows, not if he has to take the knowledge away from other people to make it so.
So I felt like that ending was several kinds of screwed up, mostly in gendered ways, possibly a bit classist, though I think it avoided racism this year.
But.
The rest of it? Pretty damn awesome.
Everything up to Mickey & Martha and Jack walking away together was really rather good.
(So on future viewings I'm likely to stop it there. Just as I stop season 2 when they're leaning on opposite sides of the wall. I'm consistent in my dislikes.)
Part of why this behaviour feels gendered is that the Doctor is male, so most companions are female, and they toned down Jack a little bit so he isn't as doomed-romance as Martha let alone Rose. I'm not... fundamentally opposed to the idea of romance. Love saving the day is pretty neat. The problems are in the details of who risks what, who loses what, who gives up parts of their lives or identities. Captain Jack is, basically, Captain Jack as he was at the end of his first episode, saving the world. Rose totally doesn't value her life before she met the Doctor and was willing to destroy worlds to get him back. There's a big difference there. And Martha... well, they've worked on Martha. Wish they'd give her more medical and less destructive soldier stuff. But with Torchwood and season 4 she isn't quite as lost everything to walk around telling the world how great her unrequited boyfriend guy was. They fixed her by giving her a career and a fiance. And she sticks with her career rather than chasing around after the fiance. That works. Donna? Gets a reset. She's still got the potential to save worlds - the version of Donna that never met the Doctor died to save the world too, it wasn't him giving her that capacity... ooooh, and there's another reason for Turn Left. Okay, read the last three as a three and do they have the same message?
Alternative reading, looking for a man to teach you how to save the world is not the way.
... I could live with that.
Except for, the Doctor wasn't her love interest, right? They were insistent about that. And looking for a teacher makes perfect sense. Even if he is a he.
Gah. Once again my irritation with the ending makes it difficult to squee about the 45 minutes that I did like. Oh dear.
That bit where everyone had their own different ways of blowing stuff up and ending the Daleks and Davros told the Doctor he turns people into weapons... oh yeah. That was a good bit. And needed saying. Because that's how it turns out, often, a lot. *But*. Without the Doctor, someone else would have had the Osterhagen key. There would have been three other UNIT people with keys at that moment. The three of them would destroy the world. What the Doctor teaches them is to be *weapons of last resort*. Martha and Jack both contact the Daleks to give them a last chance. Without the Doctor's influence, Earth would have destroyed itself without that last chance being given. So the Doctor teaches them to reach out and try one last time to talk. Which is what he did to Dalek Caan. Which is what... both set up the problem (as when they all got teleported away from their weapons) and set up the solution (Dalek Caan pulling probabilities together so they're all there for that ending).
That's a lovely complicated bit of a thing right there.
I like it that the Doctor feels that he's grown up and moved on since the born of war 9th Doctor that met Rose. I like it that he felt the other him that would blow up Daleks again was wrong. We has character arc and modification of method.
I don't entirely like that he trusts Rose to fix him, on account of it was Rose who did the same thing to the Daleks when earlier Doctor wouldn't. So, you know, slight flaw in that plan. Maybe now they're told they'll get it. (Though I have trouble believing that about Rose.) (I end up liking Rose less after this than before it. Oh dear.)
I also hated it that Rose was chasing after the Doctor because... Rose wanted to meet the Doctor. Rose didn't have any key information, did she? She said what the problem was, oops the darkness is coming, but she didn't contribute to the solution, did she? She just... turned up. And distracted him. Oh, and that made the other two Doctors, but that was on accident. *sigh*
Short version - things I love about this one - it pulls some of the complexities front and center, with the Doctor's attitude to violence, how his friends develop, and how he has developed. And the solution at the end is a classic everyone teams up and fights bad guys yaays. There's something for everyone to do. Is good.
Things I don't love about this one: Once again women are depowered and decided for and sent away and married off. Urgh.
Oh, and also, Jack? Didn't get any emotional moments. Unless I blinked. He was, once again, a weapon. And a slightly risque joke. I mean, I loved the line after he realised there's 3 of the Doctor, but... when Jack is the hero in his own story, he has feelings. When he's with the Doctor, he has jokes and deaths and big guns. Even last week when he wasn't in the same room as the Doctor he had more than that. *sigh*
The Doctor had some great reactions and some chances to define who he isn't any more in contrast to the others. That was good. And then he ends up alone again. That was... less good.
The longer this new series goes, the more I want to bring back the Time Lords. Because as it stands the Doctor is the Doctor because he's a Time Lord, and Time Lords are different. And we got a bit of contrast with the Master, so hey, the Doctor isn't evil, yaay. But if we get his people back, if we have a planet of Time Lords, we restore the distinction where actually the Doctor is the Doctor because he chooses to get involved and has therefore learned from experience. As it is it keeps on looking like it's biology, inherent difference, like when the other-him is a bit more human so he acts different and gets sent away. That's just wrong. That's the sort of thinking that underpins aristocracy, sexism, and racism, the idea that being born a certain way defines you. So he really, really, really needs a background of people that are biologically as close to him as possible yet still not the Doctor. Otherwise the story keeps veering off into things I really vocally dislike.
TheDoctorDonna could have gone so far to making that not the issue. Time Lord mind in human body saves the universe, yaays! But then they go and screw it up by making it impossible for human minds to think Time Lord thoughts for long. I get why they did it on some levels. But it will continue to irritate.
I'd usually be watching the Confidential right now but I missed the start cause they don't schedule a loo break between one and tother, which I feel is unfair. So anyway, rather than jump in 10 minutes late, I'll wait for it to record and take the time to just react to the episode.
That was absolutely entirely on crack. It turns out the *rudeword*s who told the plot in comments last week had in fact got it right, so I weren't as surprised as I would wish to be. But even then I only knew the hand regeneration thing and the 2 Doctors. The DoctorDonna was entirely a surprise. Got to love that.
Dalek Caan's comments now kinda make sense. Got to love that too. He said something about 3 last week that didn't make sense whichever way you turned it, and then suddenly it did. Awesome. Plus, importantly, the Doctor's act of compassion in New York didn't just create the problem, it solved it too. Which leaves you to wonder why Caan would bring out Davros... but it's both timey wimey and about him having lost his mind, so, you know, makes enough sense. Mostly. Sort of.
Oh, speaking of spoilers - I apologise to anyone I may have spoiled via plot bunnies. I didn't say 'Martha and Mickey join Torchwood!' because I had secret insider knowledge. I said it because there's room for a medic and a tech and we have two of those established already. I think is why anyway, maybe someone told me and I forgot. Anyway, I only said it as a plot bunny because I can totally see things to do with them. Though thus far most of my bunnies are about Mickey and Ianto and, er, shagging. *sigh*
... I worry, though, with the increased load of Doctor Who characters, we're going to lose even more of what I love about Torchwood, the darker edge... but then I think we lost the vast majority of it in season 2. Now they think it's about heroes. Bit standard, then.
Ianto and Gwen were saved by Tosh :-)
Time Lock is the same words used about the Time War. Huh.
As per usual the how do they get out of that for the cliffhanger is a bit cheap, cause they move on quickly.
Mickey and Jackie turning up was awesome. No, be more specific, Jackie turning up was awesome. Jackie with a great big gun blowing up Daleks. Absolutely hugely awesome. And the baby! And him on the nursery run! And they all go back to that universe!
... I realise I'll offend any number of Rose fans, but *please* let her stay gone this time. It's not that I... okay, actually, it is that I never much liked the character. But it's *mostly* because she's the character where she's all whiny about the Doctor and must be with him and I was here first and... it feels like she's turned into what her most annoying fans writer her as in fanfic? Oh I should so rephrase that if I don't want to get eated by the internet... No, I mean, Rose as a sensible independent woman saving the world, yaay, but Rose as a whiny clingy jealous woman who was *building the machine to get back to the Doctor even though he'd told her it would destroy both universes*... oh please let her stay gone. And how was she treating Mickey? Like he's nothing. He's got nothing to go back to? After how long in that world?
... the slash goggles must wonder what happened to Ricky's boyfriend...
... but has to admit the R in that solves it adequately without further trauma.
So... Rose gets a half human Doctor who will actually say he loves her and does kissing.
... I should probably not say out loud that that bit made me nauseous, should I?
... it's just... it's not that the Doctor does kissing, I like that the Doctor does kissing, it's that the story is set up so Rose can't be happy unless the Doctor does kissing *and even then* runs after the one that's leaving. Grow a bloody backbone woman! Make your own life!
The fact that being half human was a surprise squelches the TV movie fairly well, yesno? Maybe?
... the Rose stuff annoyed me. Sorry. It's like she thinks she's living in a romance novel *and* that romance is more important than two universes. When Ianto keeps the woman he loves alive even when she's dangerous then everyone yells at him. When Rose endangers multiple universes people treat it like it's cute.
Yeah, it only worked after the Dalek device broke the walls a bit. But she was trying. After being told what it would cost.
Mickey and Jackie used the same tech. Mickey's going to fit right in at Torchwood. Destroy world, oops!
I can see why Rose got that ending. Her story was set up to need that ending. And that's the part I really don't like.
It's also freaky that the Doctor falling in love requires him growing old and dying. I'm sorry, but that's really not part of the definition. REally.
So then there's Donna's ending. Donna who got the Doctor's mind. All his knowledge, plus a little spark of her own, so she was even better. That was pretty superb. But it's the exact same problem as John Smith with the fob watch, once the Time Lord is poured in John Smith - or in this case Donna the temp - ceases to exist. So there's a reason that had to be undone. But to also undo everything in her life back to the Christmas thing? That's...
Okay, here's how I'm reading it - Donna reminded me of all those people I'm at college with who got to a certain point in their lives, looooong after high school, and realised that in order to do more with their lives they needed to know more, so they seek out the teaching they needed. That, to me, was what Donna was doing with the Doctor. And she was brilliant. She saved the universe. Because of all she learned from the Doctor, and she learned everything. Once she'd learned everything he had to teach, she put her own spin on it and was better than the teacher. And that's what it's about, taking all this stuff that other people knew and you didn't and pouring it all in your head for several years and then putting it all together to do what nobody else could do with it. So up to there it's brilliant. And it's not like Rose saving the world from caring, or Martha saving the world by telling them her boyfriend will fix it, it's using the knowledge-power. Exactly like him.
... and then it won't fit in her head and he chooses to wipe it all away and leave her back in the life she had before she went looking for more knowledge.
On two levels, this feels dead wrong. There's the thing where having too much knowledge kills you, which is exactly exactly opposite of true. And there's the thing where I'm having a great deal of difficulty not reading this in a gendered way.
Not least because the other Doctor, the one Rose kept, was *also* part human and *also* had all the Doctor's knowledge and... keeps it. And, okay, will die, but at the usual speed.
So it's like... this guy has too much knowledge to fit into girl brain. Girl brain too small.
And I'm sure if you put it in those words the writers would never ever have meant it that way, but... give me a different way to read it, please? What were they thinking? I can't see it. I can't find a way of looking at it that doesn't feel like... well, it could be classist, poor little temp can't handle Doctor knowledge. But it's... Wrong. Knowledge is good, learning is good, and here's Donna with the ultimate in direct to brain downloads so why isn't it good?
I can't find a way of looking at that as doesn't make it the wrong ending. Big time.
And the fact the Doctor took *all* knowledge of him... that doesn't even make any *sense*. It was only the new download that wasn't fitting in. The stuff she learned from experience was *hers*. So it's really wrong.
And after she's said she wants to stay with him forever it is the kind of thing that's necessary to get rid of her, but honestly, she couldn't just change her mind? The Sarah Jane Adventures tag line is something about life on Earth is an adventure too, yesno? So Donna was looking for the shiny but without the Doctor not finding it. Okay. But after she's travelled with him a while she has the hang of it. Now she can come back to Earth because it's pretty cool here too. Learn how to walk in the dust and still see it the way the Doctor does, as such a special place that with all the universe to choose from he wants to be here. Isn't that a good ending too?
And it wasn't just that she lost the knowledge. He took it from her. It couldn't just have faded? Though that would make it natural that she couldn't keep it all, rather than a man's choice to take it from her, so... not in fact an improvement, no.
The insistence on keeping the Doctor the Lonely God, emphasis Lonely, that's what makes it so Donna can't have Time Lord knowledge. Otherwise she could be Romana and have worlds of her own to save. It doesn't elevate the Doctor to be the only one that knows what he knows, not if he has to take the knowledge away from other people to make it so.
So I felt like that ending was several kinds of screwed up, mostly in gendered ways, possibly a bit classist, though I think it avoided racism this year.
But.
The rest of it? Pretty damn awesome.
Everything up to Mickey & Martha and Jack walking away together was really rather good.
(So on future viewings I'm likely to stop it there. Just as I stop season 2 when they're leaning on opposite sides of the wall. I'm consistent in my dislikes.)
Part of why this behaviour feels gendered is that the Doctor is male, so most companions are female, and they toned down Jack a little bit so he isn't as doomed-romance as Martha let alone Rose. I'm not... fundamentally opposed to the idea of romance. Love saving the day is pretty neat. The problems are in the details of who risks what, who loses what, who gives up parts of their lives or identities. Captain Jack is, basically, Captain Jack as he was at the end of his first episode, saving the world. Rose totally doesn't value her life before she met the Doctor and was willing to destroy worlds to get him back. There's a big difference there. And Martha... well, they've worked on Martha. Wish they'd give her more medical and less destructive soldier stuff. But with Torchwood and season 4 she isn't quite as lost everything to walk around telling the world how great her unrequited boyfriend guy was. They fixed her by giving her a career and a fiance. And she sticks with her career rather than chasing around after the fiance. That works. Donna? Gets a reset. She's still got the potential to save worlds - the version of Donna that never met the Doctor died to save the world too, it wasn't him giving her that capacity... ooooh, and there's another reason for Turn Left. Okay, read the last three as a three and do they have the same message?
Alternative reading, looking for a man to teach you how to save the world is not the way.
... I could live with that.
Except for, the Doctor wasn't her love interest, right? They were insistent about that. And looking for a teacher makes perfect sense. Even if he is a he.
Gah. Once again my irritation with the ending makes it difficult to squee about the 45 minutes that I did like. Oh dear.
That bit where everyone had their own different ways of blowing stuff up and ending the Daleks and Davros told the Doctor he turns people into weapons... oh yeah. That was a good bit. And needed saying. Because that's how it turns out, often, a lot. *But*. Without the Doctor, someone else would have had the Osterhagen key. There would have been three other UNIT people with keys at that moment. The three of them would destroy the world. What the Doctor teaches them is to be *weapons of last resort*. Martha and Jack both contact the Daleks to give them a last chance. Without the Doctor's influence, Earth would have destroyed itself without that last chance being given. So the Doctor teaches them to reach out and try one last time to talk. Which is what he did to Dalek Caan. Which is what... both set up the problem (as when they all got teleported away from their weapons) and set up the solution (Dalek Caan pulling probabilities together so they're all there for that ending).
That's a lovely complicated bit of a thing right there.
I like it that the Doctor feels that he's grown up and moved on since the born of war 9th Doctor that met Rose. I like it that he felt the other him that would blow up Daleks again was wrong. We has character arc and modification of method.
I don't entirely like that he trusts Rose to fix him, on account of it was Rose who did the same thing to the Daleks when earlier Doctor wouldn't. So, you know, slight flaw in that plan. Maybe now they're told they'll get it. (Though I have trouble believing that about Rose.) (I end up liking Rose less after this than before it. Oh dear.)
I also hated it that Rose was chasing after the Doctor because... Rose wanted to meet the Doctor. Rose didn't have any key information, did she? She said what the problem was, oops the darkness is coming, but she didn't contribute to the solution, did she? She just... turned up. And distracted him. Oh, and that made the other two Doctors, but that was on accident. *sigh*
Short version - things I love about this one - it pulls some of the complexities front and center, with the Doctor's attitude to violence, how his friends develop, and how he has developed. And the solution at the end is a classic everyone teams up and fights bad guys yaays. There's something for everyone to do. Is good.
Things I don't love about this one: Once again women are depowered and decided for and sent away and married off. Urgh.
Oh, and also, Jack? Didn't get any emotional moments. Unless I blinked. He was, once again, a weapon. And a slightly risque joke. I mean, I loved the line after he realised there's 3 of the Doctor, but... when Jack is the hero in his own story, he has feelings. When he's with the Doctor, he has jokes and deaths and big guns. Even last week when he wasn't in the same room as the Doctor he had more than that. *sigh*
The Doctor had some great reactions and some chances to define who he isn't any more in contrast to the others. That was good. And then he ends up alone again. That was... less good.
The longer this new series goes, the more I want to bring back the Time Lords. Because as it stands the Doctor is the Doctor because he's a Time Lord, and Time Lords are different. And we got a bit of contrast with the Master, so hey, the Doctor isn't evil, yaay. But if we get his people back, if we have a planet of Time Lords, we restore the distinction where actually the Doctor is the Doctor because he chooses to get involved and has therefore learned from experience. As it is it keeps on looking like it's biology, inherent difference, like when the other-him is a bit more human so he acts different and gets sent away. That's just wrong. That's the sort of thinking that underpins aristocracy, sexism, and racism, the idea that being born a certain way defines you. So he really, really, really needs a background of people that are biologically as close to him as possible yet still not the Doctor. Otherwise the story keeps veering off into things I really vocally dislike.
TheDoctorDonna could have gone so far to making that not the issue. Time Lord mind in human body saves the universe, yaays! But then they go and screw it up by making it impossible for human minds to think Time Lord thoughts for long. I get why they did it on some levels. But it will continue to irritate.
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no subject
Date: 2008-07-05 07:57 pm (UTC)Dear RTD
You cannot both call someone the Doctor's child and then marry her off to him. Seriously. No.
Thanks.
Also calling Jack his child when he is, by now, twice the Doctor's age, though not in mileage/experience, well, even without the level of ick that applies from the above mentioned level, that just seems daft.
On the plus side it helps contrast with the emphasis on biological offspring that has run through too much of the new series and this season especially. Although, now, due to leaving MarySue-Jenny out of the confrontation (Lost moon of Poosh! From the future! Which she could have landed on!) You end up perilously close to biology-bad adoption-good, which... plays oddly with the gender issues. But there's Jackie saving the world with Rose, so that helps.
The diversity of the Doctor's companions fits the essay I did for university too. Which makes me look smart.
ANYway
They're not the Doctor's children. They may be his students. There's a very, very, very important difference. Your children are always your children, though they do grow up to look after you in turn. Your students very swiftly grow into your equals.
Your Lone issues is showing again.
*sigh*
no subject
Date: 2008-07-05 08:22 pm (UTC)Knowledge is good, knowledge is power, too much power is dangerous. (Especially when the actor has asked to leave the show.) Being afraid of people with too much power - even the Doctor himself - is a theme that has run through the show for four years. Nothing gendered about it. It does continue the Doctor as aristocracy theme though, you are right, but I can't see it as gendered.
The aristocracy stuff is kind of written into his title - Time Lord, I'm not sure how having more of them around would help that since he would still be far cleverer than any human. And if they did have more Time Lords about and the Doctor was supposedly special because he chose to help, while the others stood around doing nothing or being evil, then it would just be the old stereotype of the upper classes always being evil/indolent, so you've only swapped one set of issues for another.
And Rose was needed because she enabled Donna to return in Turn Left, gave the Bad Wolf warning that got the Doctor to come back and investigate before stuff actually started to happen (none of the others could contact him after it started) and also saved Wilf and Donna's Mum, so she definitely contributed.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-05 10:52 pm (UTC)Swapping issues on aristocracy - it would be swapping a discourse rooted in essences for one rooted in choices, unchangeables for changeables, which I would call a massive improvement.
I feel the connotation of Lord is changing. I mean, the House of Lords has a bunch of people in it who were appointed for being very good at what they do, yesno? Not just about birth any more.
Too much knowledge as dangerous I just can't swallow. Ignorance is poison, knowledge is cure. Too much power... yeah, but only if it's making choices for everyone else kinds of power, or controlling the knowledge of others kinds of power, power inequality, not power per se.
With Rose and with Donna they got temporary empowerment and it got taken away because they couldn't survive with all that power or all that knowledge. And the Doctor took it away. And... it bothers me.
thanks for suggestion though.
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Date: 2008-07-06 04:58 am (UTC)Thinking about it, I think it is supposed to bother us. I think we are supposed to have that slightly childish 'it's not fair!' response, because it helps plug us straight into the Doctor's pain. If there was a clear, rational reason for it, that we could understand as adults, then it wouldn't matter to us so much. But as it is, it happens because that is the way the universe is and the Doctor is left with no choice but to take it away or she will die and it isn't fair and he knows it isn't fair and there is still nothing he can do about it. Angst and woe.
So I am probably wrong to try to make you happier about the ending, because I don't think we are supposed to be happy, because let's face it the Doctor isn't happy.
It is just possible you have already said all this in your latest post. I shall go read.
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Date: 2008-07-06 12:43 pm (UTC)I do agree it's supposed to make children think it's not fair, which makes it a bit more complicated than just putting women back in their place. But I still don't think it's the right ending to keep doing.
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Date: 2008-07-05 09:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-05 10:59 pm (UTC)which you just agreed with.
/preachchoir
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Date: 2008-07-06 04:06 am (UTC)Still, I'm irked that we couldn't keep DoctorDonna. Especially if Tennant wants to move on soon.
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Date: 2008-07-06 12:47 pm (UTC)Yeah, Donna was smartest and human!Doctor was... not. But I don't think he was very much not, he built that shiny destroy all Daleks thing. He just talked a bit more like Donna and a bit less than usual.
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Date: 2008-07-07 11:00 am (UTC)This reminds me of SG-1 where Col. O'Neill got the whole knowledge of the Ancients downloaded into his brain, twice, and it drove him mad and almost dead.
I suppose the distinction between Donna and 10.5 is that she was human with time lord bits and he was a time lord with human bits, therefore he could handle it.
I honestly didn't think about the gender thing, although it fits into accepted biologist theories - the female brain has a weaker understanding of math and science, men in general have a higher IQ, there are very few female geniuses, ambition is caused by testosterone etc. etc.
So there is this fear that as a woman you won't be able to escape your biological limitations. (Luckily, I was raised in complete ignorance of said limitations, and never felt held back by them as I was growing up.)
Anyway, I agree with you that it does have a little nasty ring to it.
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Date: 2008-07-07 12:06 pm (UTC)biologist theories... well those theories exist, but there's other biologists disproving them. Ambition causes testosterone, for instance. IQ tests we had a lot about in sociology: they measure ability to do IQ tests, which is a teachable skill, culturally specific and biased. Female genius meets the glass ceiling. And in countries with more equality women are in fact at least as good at maths. Can't get the full text from home. But anyway, my point is, as a sociologist all my studies have told me the so called biological limitations are a crock. They're nurture, not nature, and they're culturally defined and culturally specific.
And you probably didn't mean to spark a lecture. Sorry.
The difference was probably meant to be between Time Lord and Human. But there was enough fuzzy in the presentation that... did he actually say half? As in half human? If they were both half then that's them the same. So it don't feel quite as clear as all that.
I miss Romana.
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Date: 2008-07-07 08:02 pm (UTC)Well, Ten says Donna is a "human with a time lord brain," wich would make new!Ten a time lord with human mortality. Hence Donna pointing to both Tens when she said they lacked that little bit of human gut instinct.
What little I know of Romana is that she outsmarted the Doctor. Maybe she'll come back like the Master at some point?
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Date: 2008-07-08 10:03 pm (UTC)I reckon any bit of the classic series is just waiting for someone to come up with the right story to reintroduce it, the right hook to hang it on and the right approach that balances old school knowledge with introducing to a new audience.