DW: BFA: To The Death
Mar. 21st, 2011 08:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethThis is the last 8th Doctor audio. I listened to it this morning on the way to college. Since then I've studied, slept, and woke up with it still bugging me.
Reasons are obviously spoilers.
Partly it's the feeling it stopped half way through. It went so huge and dark, and it left it with things the Doctor could do but is choosing not to, and there's one point where the Doctor is asked if he can think of a single other way to fix things and the writer says of course there isn't one but the point of the Doctor is of course there is one. So I felt they'd got the problem-cat up the tree and just left the story there. I know how long 8th Doctor audios take to listen to, but I reached the end still feeling like the next bit was coming and it would be brilliant and fix everything because that's what the Doctor does. Only, this time, not.
I feel like that line in Circular Time, I come here for one sort of time and I've had the exact opposite.
I also feel like the writers have been lazy and boring in the name of being innovative and scary. Daleks kill people, you see, so lets have them kill people we care about! That'll keep them scary! Well I would point out that Daleks have been killing people for several generations, including Jack and the Doctor, and yet it tends to wear off or plain not hit when it's Our Heroes being shot at. And they're still scary. That is the very good trick.
And the thing is, far as I can see, this is because the scary part of the Daleks isn't that they kill people. Lots of things kill people. The scary part is what they do to how people live. It's not scary that the Daleks nearly destroy the world, it's scary that Martha does. Because the Daleks corrupt, it's what they do, make everyone around them think in the same terms. Like Jubilee, we start off fighting the Daleks, we end up drinking the Dalek juice and becoming them. That is the scary part. The Doctor nearly hitting the button to destroy Earth-and-the-Daleks, coward or killer, getting so close to killer. That is the scary part. Making the Daleks kill more people doesn't make them more scary, because the scary part is the twisting effect.
There's also a part where people actively ally themselves with Daleks, that happens a lot, and then they've picked the wrong side and they die. So in this story the Monk worked with them for money and got his karma and Tamsin worked with them without knowing what they are and ignorance was no defence and that's how the story usually goes. Work with the Daleks and it all goes horribly wrong.
But then in this story Alex becomes a general, Alexander the Great, and is that what you'd hope for for the Doctor's family? Not what the Doctor ever hoped. And Lucie Miller, she gets so her solution is a Really Big Bomb. And her solution contradicts the Doctor's solution. ... which was also a Really Big Bomb, and some time travel, but the Doctor was being twisted too. And at one point it looks like they all get killed. Story ends with Alex and Lucie very definitely still dead. And it's pretty much 'and so' they get killed, because not listening to the Doctor's plan tends to get one killed. And also because blowing things up is only ever the answer if the Doctor is doing it.
... the morals of this 'verse are a bit wonky, right there.
So they fight and they die, and the extras talk about how its tragic and how the Daleks did it and that's because they're scary killers who exterminate and this time they wanted the exterminate to get closer to home. But, that's not the theme matching reason why they died. They accepted the Dalek paradigm of how to fight, they worked not as tricksters but by bringing the bigger bomb, they stepped up the violence, and they died of it. They might have defeated the Daleks... but they also failed, falling into the trap of becoming like them. And that's not exactly the ending I'd have hoped for
It contributed to my sense of unfinished, because contradicting the Doctor and doing something violent is the error in the middle. Not here though. End of story.
But then the Doctor gets really upset and starts saying very Time War things. How if he has the chance again he'll wipe the Daleks from the face of the universe. How maybe back at the beginning when he didn't beat someone to death with a rock that was a mistake, going soft. I don't know, I need to listen to that again, I was taking books back to the library. But the Doctor was going dark and a little bit messed up in the head at the end there. He was talking about breaking the laws of time to fix what the Monk and the Daleks did when they broke the laws of time. And the story ends with him not doing it. But it doesn't give very persuasive reasons or leave us thinking he's actually decided not to do it. So again, feels like a middle. And, also, a messed up way to end a series.
So I can grumble about this one pretty extensively. It weren't proper. It made everyone more Dalek-y and made them dead and left it there.
Other things that bugged me: The Doctor at the end is grieving for Lucie Miller. He's not, far as I can tell, grieving for Susan's son, his great-grandson. And yeah he's spent more time with Lucie, but it still feels very backwards or at least incomplete to me.
And, also, they made Susan have a son, and then they killed him, for dramatic effect, and then they concentrated on the Doctor's reaction... to something else entirely. I'm annoyed on Susan's behalf. And also because killing kids is pissing me off lately, even if this one was college age and a soldier and a hero and come to think possibly same age as Rory and most companions. If he was child age kid then I'd be very double annoyed. What irritates me is creating and killing kids to make angst for their olders. It's just button stompy. The only remotely plus side is it's gender reversed from the way comics usually do it, killed a bloke to effect a woman. But as I said, then pretty much ignored her reaction.
Plus once they started killing so many characters, the only ones they left standing were the TV canon characters, and that just feels wonky. I know the reason is they're only on borrow, but within the story it can't be that the ones we're spending time listening to are different tier of worth than the ones we ever saw. If it ever feels like they are the story feels wonky.
Main thing that bugs me that I've been worried about since last episode:
disability issues, disabled characters, handling thereof.
So first they make Lucie disabled, and we get a big long story about how that happened and it was scary and tragic and now everyone looks at her and is all what happened to you. And for a while she was blind and in a wheelchair, but then the story wanted to deal with something other than disability so that wore off so she was only half blind and in those metal leg things. After that she could do everything she usually does, and the story ignored her disability unless she was having a moment of 'look at me!' and trying to guilt the Doctor for not saving her. And then the story killed her.
And, yes, she gets the big heroic blow up Daleks ending. She also gets to hit Daleks with a big lorry. So you can tell someone has been watching the Dalek invasion of Earth. Because there too there's the wheelchair dude who blows himself up. And we have a pattern.
Stories that disabled people usually get on television: How They Got Disabled, and Tragic Yet Inspiring.
Stories that disabled people get lately in TW and DW: How They Got Disabled, and Tragic Yet Inspiring Death.
... also being evil. They didn't go there this time. For that at least I'm relieved.
I know there's heroic deaths all over the place on Doctor Who, but when there's a consistent subcategory it's a bit worrying. Owen got disabled, got depressed about it, got over it, got heroic death. Lucie got disabled, got depressed about it, blew herself up in heroic death that looked a tiny bit suicidal and was connected with a 'look at me' logic. The thing where people with disabilities can keep on being heroic and not in fact suicidal or dead is... well, I'd really like stories with more of that thing. And instead we got this.
When they made her blind I thought it was interesting because we've got an audio character who has to rely on audio data, like we the audience. Only they never did anything with that, except make it wear off. So it was a bit rubbish really. If all they're going to do is make it wear off then why do it? Well so she can be disabled and everyone can be shocked and she can be upset about it. It's not so a disabled person can save the world, it's in the category doing really bad things to people. And obviously I agree that losing your vision and your mobility is a really bad thing to go through. It's just bugging me that its the only story about disability, how bad it is to have it suddenly happen, how upset everyone gets about it.
So, basically, I didn't like what they did with this story, even if they did it grand and tragic and heroic.
I don't think I just started with 'I don't like it that they killed Lucie and Alex' and started pulling it apart from there, I think the disability stuff bugs me whoever they do it to, but it might be I got grumpy about character death and went looking for reasons, I'll be fair and admit that.
But there were bits while I was listening, first time listening so I didn't know how it would end, that the writing sort of clunked and grated. Most everything Tamsin said, the 'I see the error of my ways' bits, or was it 'you see the error of your ways'? Do people talk like that? Do people talk like that while being shot at by Daleks? I didn't think so. And then she died, and that kind of made sense of why she was so nothingy as a character all through, because she was a tragic death in waiting.
And then there's the monk. He helps Daleks now? What on earth could motivate him to do that? He's been motivated thus far by giving history a boot to make it more interesting, maybe undo some of the Doctor's boots. But helping Daleks? Apparently from stupid. And for money? That's a first for a Time Lord, they've got everything already, why need it? So then he just got boring. The law of unintended consequences coming back to bite a Time Lord is an interesting story, but when you help Daleks is difficult to see what intended consequences would be, different than what happened.
I just relistened to the ending. It still don't sound like an ending. There's the argue about what they could do as Time Lords, with Susan saying you know better and the Doctor saying he doesn't think he does any more.
Right at the end, Susan talking to the Doctor has "I know you'll do the right thing" followed immediately by "Come back again one day. Please. Prove me wrong again."
Prove her wrong about doing the right thing? If they mean her to be interestingly ambiguous about the laws of time, despite arguing for them even in the face of her losses, those lines work.
And then the last thing the Doctor says is about one day he'll go back. Only he's just been listening to Lucie Miller's message, so he's talking about going back along his own timeline to make it work better.
So that's not an ending, that's a One Day, where the Doctor is talking to recordings and maybe gone a bit dark and Time War only the Big Finish stuff isn't allowed to go there.
So it's unsatisfying, and I think it's meant to be, and I don't know why they'd do that.
So now I'm all grumbly and picky about it.
But I think my basic complain is:
Doctor Who stories are usually trickster stories where a good trick saves everything. This is a kaboom story. Which kabooms a disabled person.
In that there are so many layers of Do Not Want. So I just didn't like it.
Reasons are obviously spoilers.
Partly it's the feeling it stopped half way through. It went so huge and dark, and it left it with things the Doctor could do but is choosing not to, and there's one point where the Doctor is asked if he can think of a single other way to fix things and the writer says of course there isn't one but the point of the Doctor is of course there is one. So I felt they'd got the problem-cat up the tree and just left the story there. I know how long 8th Doctor audios take to listen to, but I reached the end still feeling like the next bit was coming and it would be brilliant and fix everything because that's what the Doctor does. Only, this time, not.
I feel like that line in Circular Time, I come here for one sort of time and I've had the exact opposite.
I also feel like the writers have been lazy and boring in the name of being innovative and scary. Daleks kill people, you see, so lets have them kill people we care about! That'll keep them scary! Well I would point out that Daleks have been killing people for several generations, including Jack and the Doctor, and yet it tends to wear off or plain not hit when it's Our Heroes being shot at. And they're still scary. That is the very good trick.
And the thing is, far as I can see, this is because the scary part of the Daleks isn't that they kill people. Lots of things kill people. The scary part is what they do to how people live. It's not scary that the Daleks nearly destroy the world, it's scary that Martha does. Because the Daleks corrupt, it's what they do, make everyone around them think in the same terms. Like Jubilee, we start off fighting the Daleks, we end up drinking the Dalek juice and becoming them. That is the scary part. The Doctor nearly hitting the button to destroy Earth-and-the-Daleks, coward or killer, getting so close to killer. That is the scary part. Making the Daleks kill more people doesn't make them more scary, because the scary part is the twisting effect.
There's also a part where people actively ally themselves with Daleks, that happens a lot, and then they've picked the wrong side and they die. So in this story the Monk worked with them for money and got his karma and Tamsin worked with them without knowing what they are and ignorance was no defence and that's how the story usually goes. Work with the Daleks and it all goes horribly wrong.
But then in this story Alex becomes a general, Alexander the Great, and is that what you'd hope for for the Doctor's family? Not what the Doctor ever hoped. And Lucie Miller, she gets so her solution is a Really Big Bomb. And her solution contradicts the Doctor's solution. ... which was also a Really Big Bomb, and some time travel, but the Doctor was being twisted too. And at one point it looks like they all get killed. Story ends with Alex and Lucie very definitely still dead. And it's pretty much 'and so' they get killed, because not listening to the Doctor's plan tends to get one killed. And also because blowing things up is only ever the answer if the Doctor is doing it.
... the morals of this 'verse are a bit wonky, right there.
So they fight and they die, and the extras talk about how its tragic and how the Daleks did it and that's because they're scary killers who exterminate and this time they wanted the exterminate to get closer to home. But, that's not the theme matching reason why they died. They accepted the Dalek paradigm of how to fight, they worked not as tricksters but by bringing the bigger bomb, they stepped up the violence, and they died of it. They might have defeated the Daleks... but they also failed, falling into the trap of becoming like them. And that's not exactly the ending I'd have hoped for
It contributed to my sense of unfinished, because contradicting the Doctor and doing something violent is the error in the middle. Not here though. End of story.
But then the Doctor gets really upset and starts saying very Time War things. How if he has the chance again he'll wipe the Daleks from the face of the universe. How maybe back at the beginning when he didn't beat someone to death with a rock that was a mistake, going soft. I don't know, I need to listen to that again, I was taking books back to the library. But the Doctor was going dark and a little bit messed up in the head at the end there. He was talking about breaking the laws of time to fix what the Monk and the Daleks did when they broke the laws of time. And the story ends with him not doing it. But it doesn't give very persuasive reasons or leave us thinking he's actually decided not to do it. So again, feels like a middle. And, also, a messed up way to end a series.
So I can grumble about this one pretty extensively. It weren't proper. It made everyone more Dalek-y and made them dead and left it there.
Other things that bugged me: The Doctor at the end is grieving for Lucie Miller. He's not, far as I can tell, grieving for Susan's son, his great-grandson. And yeah he's spent more time with Lucie, but it still feels very backwards or at least incomplete to me.
And, also, they made Susan have a son, and then they killed him, for dramatic effect, and then they concentrated on the Doctor's reaction... to something else entirely. I'm annoyed on Susan's behalf. And also because killing kids is pissing me off lately, even if this one was college age and a soldier and a hero and come to think possibly same age as Rory and most companions. If he was child age kid then I'd be very double annoyed. What irritates me is creating and killing kids to make angst for their olders. It's just button stompy. The only remotely plus side is it's gender reversed from the way comics usually do it, killed a bloke to effect a woman. But as I said, then pretty much ignored her reaction.
Plus once they started killing so many characters, the only ones they left standing were the TV canon characters, and that just feels wonky. I know the reason is they're only on borrow, but within the story it can't be that the ones we're spending time listening to are different tier of worth than the ones we ever saw. If it ever feels like they are the story feels wonky.
Main thing that bugs me that I've been worried about since last episode:
disability issues, disabled characters, handling thereof.
So first they make Lucie disabled, and we get a big long story about how that happened and it was scary and tragic and now everyone looks at her and is all what happened to you. And for a while she was blind and in a wheelchair, but then the story wanted to deal with something other than disability so that wore off so she was only half blind and in those metal leg things. After that she could do everything she usually does, and the story ignored her disability unless she was having a moment of 'look at me!' and trying to guilt the Doctor for not saving her. And then the story killed her.
And, yes, she gets the big heroic blow up Daleks ending. She also gets to hit Daleks with a big lorry. So you can tell someone has been watching the Dalek invasion of Earth. Because there too there's the wheelchair dude who blows himself up. And we have a pattern.
Stories that disabled people usually get on television: How They Got Disabled, and Tragic Yet Inspiring.
Stories that disabled people get lately in TW and DW: How They Got Disabled, and Tragic Yet Inspiring Death.
... also being evil. They didn't go there this time. For that at least I'm relieved.
I know there's heroic deaths all over the place on Doctor Who, but when there's a consistent subcategory it's a bit worrying. Owen got disabled, got depressed about it, got over it, got heroic death. Lucie got disabled, got depressed about it, blew herself up in heroic death that looked a tiny bit suicidal and was connected with a 'look at me' logic. The thing where people with disabilities can keep on being heroic and not in fact suicidal or dead is... well, I'd really like stories with more of that thing. And instead we got this.
When they made her blind I thought it was interesting because we've got an audio character who has to rely on audio data, like we the audience. Only they never did anything with that, except make it wear off. So it was a bit rubbish really. If all they're going to do is make it wear off then why do it? Well so she can be disabled and everyone can be shocked and she can be upset about it. It's not so a disabled person can save the world, it's in the category doing really bad things to people. And obviously I agree that losing your vision and your mobility is a really bad thing to go through. It's just bugging me that its the only story about disability, how bad it is to have it suddenly happen, how upset everyone gets about it.
So, basically, I didn't like what they did with this story, even if they did it grand and tragic and heroic.
I don't think I just started with 'I don't like it that they killed Lucie and Alex' and started pulling it apart from there, I think the disability stuff bugs me whoever they do it to, but it might be I got grumpy about character death and went looking for reasons, I'll be fair and admit that.
But there were bits while I was listening, first time listening so I didn't know how it would end, that the writing sort of clunked and grated. Most everything Tamsin said, the 'I see the error of my ways' bits, or was it 'you see the error of your ways'? Do people talk like that? Do people talk like that while being shot at by Daleks? I didn't think so. And then she died, and that kind of made sense of why she was so nothingy as a character all through, because she was a tragic death in waiting.
And then there's the monk. He helps Daleks now? What on earth could motivate him to do that? He's been motivated thus far by giving history a boot to make it more interesting, maybe undo some of the Doctor's boots. But helping Daleks? Apparently from stupid. And for money? That's a first for a Time Lord, they've got everything already, why need it? So then he just got boring. The law of unintended consequences coming back to bite a Time Lord is an interesting story, but when you help Daleks is difficult to see what intended consequences would be, different than what happened.
I just relistened to the ending. It still don't sound like an ending. There's the argue about what they could do as Time Lords, with Susan saying you know better and the Doctor saying he doesn't think he does any more.
Right at the end, Susan talking to the Doctor has "I know you'll do the right thing" followed immediately by "Come back again one day. Please. Prove me wrong again."
Prove her wrong about doing the right thing? If they mean her to be interestingly ambiguous about the laws of time, despite arguing for them even in the face of her losses, those lines work.
And then the last thing the Doctor says is about one day he'll go back. Only he's just been listening to Lucie Miller's message, so he's talking about going back along his own timeline to make it work better.
So that's not an ending, that's a One Day, where the Doctor is talking to recordings and maybe gone a bit dark and Time War only the Big Finish stuff isn't allowed to go there.
So it's unsatisfying, and I think it's meant to be, and I don't know why they'd do that.
So now I'm all grumbly and picky about it.
But I think my basic complain is:
Doctor Who stories are usually trickster stories where a good trick saves everything. This is a kaboom story. Which kabooms a disabled person.
In that there are so many layers of Do Not Want. So I just didn't like it.
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no subject
Date: 2011-03-22 03:54 am (UTC)Plus once they started killing so many characters, the only ones they left standing were the TV canon characters, and that just feels wonky.
Killing Adric in Earthshock was audacious; it was the programme saying to the viewer "Look what we can do!" Killing Lucie alone here would actually have been better dramatically than killing Tamsin and Alex as well, because leaving the TV characters alive essentially says "Look what we can't do." (Also I cared more about Lucie than the other two, and resent being made to feel I should have cared more about Tamsin and Alex.)
My only disagreement with you is on the "Prove me wrong again" line, which to me refers to Susan's belief that he is abandoning her again as he did before. It is confusingly written.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-22 04:34 am (UTC)Susan's line is either poorly written or interestingly ambiguous, so I went with the generous interesting interpretation.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-22 09:08 am (UTC)Just popping in to agree fervently with this brilliant summation. :)
I loved it when River said "I hate good wizards in fairy tales. They always turn out to be him." LOL!
no subject
Date: 2011-04-06 05:22 am (UTC)Word on the disabled thing. In the last ep, as soon as Lucie got permanently disabled and didn't recover, I thought it was pretty likely that she'd die (hey, her life is damaged already, rrrright!), and yep, the trope got carried out, she was sacrificed.
Also, I was just super-annoyed at the way the focus on Alex faded to nothing at the end in favour of Lucie, that was really poor writing I thought.
Overall I was blown away at the finale, at the sheer emotionalness of it, I enjoyed it for all the DOOOOOOM and Time War foreshadowing, but you raise really good points here about how some punches were pulled in the writing.
The actors' performances were bloody marvellous, I thought.