Doctor Who: Day of the Moon
Apr. 30th, 2011 07:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethWeirdly, sadly, I did not like that plot resolution. It was a very effective trick. But it was also genocide. Kill on sight? For an entire species? Throughout all of human history? How is that not evil? Even Daleks get a chance. The Silence? They just get dead. And it takes a moment that has been celebrated as a great human achievement, a reaching out to the universe, a moment celebrated by the Doctor and Martha repeatedly just for the coolness of it, and... turns it into a kill order. I have to say, asking for their total surrender first does not actually make it okay. This is dark. Seriously very dark indeed. And I do not agree.
... actually, come to think, recursive time travel logic: the Doctor and Martha watched the moon landing repeatedly. The Doctor watched the kill order he arranged repeatedly. And even the Doctor wouldn't remember it. So the Doctor programmed himself to kill the Silence.
Unless time travel doesn't work like that and it never happened that way until just now.
That's either a tangent from the moral issue or a tragedy of time travel morality.
I'm also not best pleased with the character stuff. The Doctor and River and the kissing and the happy-sad of it and being all flirty and fun, yeah, that's nice. The Doctor liking her for the shooting is, sadly, entirely consistent with a man I can only read as never having got over the Master. He has his morality, and then he has what hits his buttons, and they're somewhat incompatible. I can see it as consistent.
I also do like it when 7 tells Ace to blow stuff up, and likes that she blows stuff up real good.
Are guns an extension of that? No. Ace blows up stuff, River is shooting people. There ought to be a problem with that.
I know this isn't new, but there should have been another way.
That's the Doctor that's most powerful, the one who says there should.
But, hey, basically, The Doctor and River? I quite like that.
Amy and Rory and The Doctor and spinning it out as a triangle? Oh please, get over it.
Amy loves Rory! Rory should know that by now. Why is it even a thing?
On the other hand the performances that go with that plot line were lovely. Arthur Darvill being Rory, all the moments you can see the story in his face, the sinking feelings and the moments of realisation. Written all over him. Love it.
... Rory is teetering right on the edge of sulky though. I love him when he's caring, I'm not so keen when he's possessive and jealous and insecure. And I fear that writers might believe that's what love is.
If they're going to do a triangle, just close the edges. The Doctor cares about Rory too. Just make it a proper OT3. We all do, put it in the stories proper. Love is caring, not hurting. Care for everyone, no problems.
... well, problems, because alive, but not those problems.
I think I'd rather go back to asexual Doctor than have spiky love triangle story get all over my happy adventure place.
And did I mention I like River and the Doctor? Because I really rather do. She does her own thing and trusts the Doctor to have her back and supports him absolutely and it's like a partnership.
A partnership where she goes back in her box between adventures. Someone wrote that this week and now it's bugging me, the Moffat women who go in the toybox when men aren't playing with them. I suspect it's overstated, but I can see it and it's niggly. I like it more when it looks like River has her own career and just plays with the Doctor sometimes.
... I guess I have a lot of worries about the relationships and all the ways they could be written bad. I'd rather they avoid them than write them wrong in my favourite stories. Go have adventures now pls.
I provisionally like the last few minutes though. I like that I've seen people all week arguing about who Canton would want to marry that would be illegal. Black? Dates don't work out. A bloke? Gay agenda! ... a black bloke. :-) It's like playing with the audience and nose tapping the American political stuff. For one they have long since got over the black part, so why not the other? So the marriage law looks daft. And then in both episode and sentences, with the moon landing, there's the other comparison: It looks double ridiculous, put two men on the moon but not in a marriage.
:-)
Agenda: Win!
River kissing the Doctor... I like how its so much like he's dropping her at her doorstep. Body language and all. Neither of them pay the slightest attention to the whole thing where its a prison. Also there aren't any guards - you end up wondering if they're just used to it.
I like how he's all awkward and flappy and doesn't know where to put his hands.
Is sad when she reckons is a last time.
The thing where he's going one way and she's going the other, it don't make sense. It simples up something that could be gloriously chaotic. But... the way Time Lords invariably met in linear order didn't make sense either. If she's exactly opposite of that it's neat. Time Lords have an excuse though, Gallifrey putting things in order. What's River's excuse?
Plus the 1103 meeting doesn't fit what she said.
I like River. I fear it going horribly wrong. Both in story and out, which is a good trick given that we know the ending so how can a beginning go horribly wrong? Lots of ways, as it turns out. Interesting.
Amy's pregnancy... ooooh, dear. They're going sci fi with it. The trouble with that is there's a bazillion ways that can be a bad thing, and none that I've ever ever seen that it can be good. If they do a good sci fi pregnancy it will be a first. Oh, actually, no, I forgot, Deep Space Nine counts with the three person pregnancy transplant. That was good. So it would be a second.
... oh dear, now I'm thinking pregnancy transplant in the TARDIS. Rory or the Doctor?
Amy with a baby in the pictures in the girl's room: looking like the parental unit there. Great. So we think we know what's up with that particular little girl.
And then... glowy gold! BZUH! *blinks*
Awesome!
Because now we know nothing and there's a million possibilities and they're all impossible.
Excellent!
Also it means we don't know what the kid will look like next. Or what she looked like last. Or how old she is.
... or, in fact, if she's the Doctor. I mean, there would be a lot about her behaviour that would be awkward to explain, but clearly one could sell the possibility.
... now I want to fic it.
I want to see what happens next... but this episode didn't feel like a complete meal of an ep, it felt like a part one or something. They did a good trick to the Silence but most everything else was setup.
I like the sequence with Amy where we saw it from a her-memory point of view, where the lines just kept appearing on her. Very creepy. I have a niggly dissatisfaction with how those visuals tied in to the episode. It somehow feels like it didn't go anywhere, just counting them like that.
It's creepy knowing Amy is missing a huge great chunk from being captured by the Silence.
It's super creepy combined with the pregnancy arc.
There are many things I do not want to think about in nice family rated adventure stories, and noncon pregnancy is right up there.
which is one of the whys scifi pregnancy tells so many wrong stories. its always the unwanted changeling baby body horror if its scifi. why not tell the one about the baby who is very much wanted and loved? that has to fit in to lots of people stories and makes enough complications right there.
... I has worried about that storyline a lot.
Conclusion: Niggly bad things, moral very darkness, but Canton was a neat story and River kicks arse and glowy gold impossibilities open the story up every which way.
I may need the rest of the season before I can decide precisely what I think of this one on balance.
Is a beginning.
... actually, come to think, recursive time travel logic: the Doctor and Martha watched the moon landing repeatedly. The Doctor watched the kill order he arranged repeatedly. And even the Doctor wouldn't remember it. So the Doctor programmed himself to kill the Silence.
Unless time travel doesn't work like that and it never happened that way until just now.
That's either a tangent from the moral issue or a tragedy of time travel morality.
I'm also not best pleased with the character stuff. The Doctor and River and the kissing and the happy-sad of it and being all flirty and fun, yeah, that's nice. The Doctor liking her for the shooting is, sadly, entirely consistent with a man I can only read as never having got over the Master. He has his morality, and then he has what hits his buttons, and they're somewhat incompatible. I can see it as consistent.
I also do like it when 7 tells Ace to blow stuff up, and likes that she blows stuff up real good.
Are guns an extension of that? No. Ace blows up stuff, River is shooting people. There ought to be a problem with that.
I know this isn't new, but there should have been another way.
That's the Doctor that's most powerful, the one who says there should.
But, hey, basically, The Doctor and River? I quite like that.
Amy and Rory and The Doctor and spinning it out as a triangle? Oh please, get over it.
Amy loves Rory! Rory should know that by now. Why is it even a thing?
On the other hand the performances that go with that plot line were lovely. Arthur Darvill being Rory, all the moments you can see the story in his face, the sinking feelings and the moments of realisation. Written all over him. Love it.
... Rory is teetering right on the edge of sulky though. I love him when he's caring, I'm not so keen when he's possessive and jealous and insecure. And I fear that writers might believe that's what love is.
If they're going to do a triangle, just close the edges. The Doctor cares about Rory too. Just make it a proper OT3. We all do, put it in the stories proper. Love is caring, not hurting. Care for everyone, no problems.
... well, problems, because alive, but not those problems.
I think I'd rather go back to asexual Doctor than have spiky love triangle story get all over my happy adventure place.
And did I mention I like River and the Doctor? Because I really rather do. She does her own thing and trusts the Doctor to have her back and supports him absolutely and it's like a partnership.
A partnership where she goes back in her box between adventures. Someone wrote that this week and now it's bugging me, the Moffat women who go in the toybox when men aren't playing with them. I suspect it's overstated, but I can see it and it's niggly. I like it more when it looks like River has her own career and just plays with the Doctor sometimes.
... I guess I have a lot of worries about the relationships and all the ways they could be written bad. I'd rather they avoid them than write them wrong in my favourite stories. Go have adventures now pls.
I provisionally like the last few minutes though. I like that I've seen people all week arguing about who Canton would want to marry that would be illegal. Black? Dates don't work out. A bloke? Gay agenda! ... a black bloke. :-) It's like playing with the audience and nose tapping the American political stuff. For one they have long since got over the black part, so why not the other? So the marriage law looks daft. And then in both episode and sentences, with the moon landing, there's the other comparison: It looks double ridiculous, put two men on the moon but not in a marriage.
:-)
Agenda: Win!
River kissing the Doctor... I like how its so much like he's dropping her at her doorstep. Body language and all. Neither of them pay the slightest attention to the whole thing where its a prison. Also there aren't any guards - you end up wondering if they're just used to it.
I like how he's all awkward and flappy and doesn't know where to put his hands.
Is sad when she reckons is a last time.
The thing where he's going one way and she's going the other, it don't make sense. It simples up something that could be gloriously chaotic. But... the way Time Lords invariably met in linear order didn't make sense either. If she's exactly opposite of that it's neat. Time Lords have an excuse though, Gallifrey putting things in order. What's River's excuse?
Plus the 1103 meeting doesn't fit what she said.
I like River. I fear it going horribly wrong. Both in story and out, which is a good trick given that we know the ending so how can a beginning go horribly wrong? Lots of ways, as it turns out. Interesting.
Amy's pregnancy... ooooh, dear. They're going sci fi with it. The trouble with that is there's a bazillion ways that can be a bad thing, and none that I've ever ever seen that it can be good. If they do a good sci fi pregnancy it will be a first. Oh, actually, no, I forgot, Deep Space Nine counts with the three person pregnancy transplant. That was good. So it would be a second.
... oh dear, now I'm thinking pregnancy transplant in the TARDIS. Rory or the Doctor?
Amy with a baby in the pictures in the girl's room: looking like the parental unit there. Great. So we think we know what's up with that particular little girl.
And then... glowy gold! BZUH! *blinks*
Awesome!
Because now we know nothing and there's a million possibilities and they're all impossible.
Excellent!
Also it means we don't know what the kid will look like next. Or what she looked like last. Or how old she is.
... or, in fact, if she's the Doctor. I mean, there would be a lot about her behaviour that would be awkward to explain, but clearly one could sell the possibility.
... now I want to fic it.
I want to see what happens next... but this episode didn't feel like a complete meal of an ep, it felt like a part one or something. They did a good trick to the Silence but most everything else was setup.
I like the sequence with Amy where we saw it from a her-memory point of view, where the lines just kept appearing on her. Very creepy. I have a niggly dissatisfaction with how those visuals tied in to the episode. It somehow feels like it didn't go anywhere, just counting them like that.
It's creepy knowing Amy is missing a huge great chunk from being captured by the Silence.
It's super creepy combined with the pregnancy arc.
There are many things I do not want to think about in nice family rated adventure stories, and noncon pregnancy is right up there.
which is one of the whys scifi pregnancy tells so many wrong stories. its always the unwanted changeling baby body horror if its scifi. why not tell the one about the baby who is very much wanted and loved? that has to fit in to lots of people stories and makes enough complications right there.
... I has worried about that storyline a lot.
Conclusion: Niggly bad things, moral very darkness, but Canton was a neat story and River kicks arse and glowy gold impossibilities open the story up every which way.
I may need the rest of the season before I can decide precisely what I think of this one on balance.
Is a beginning.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-30 07:14 pm (UTC)In my head that is either simpler or more complicated than I managed to write it. Like, this is Important Proof... that nothing too complicated happened.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-30 07:40 pm (UTC)It do bring into question how much of what we saw in that room was consensus reality. If Amy was already stolen by the Silence and asleep then 'I think she's just dreaming' makes sense... and if she wasn't then bzuh???
no subject
Date: 2011-05-01 02:52 am (UTC)I'm with you, River back in the box is no fun. River out having her own adventures is much better. It's like nobody is really alive unless they're with The Doctor.
Canton's story was very cool. Just a note, the US Supreme Court ruled miscegenation laws unconstitutional in 1967, so his wanting to marry anyone black, while technically legal, would still have been an issue. As far as that goes, there are still states that never actually repealed those laws, and in 2009 a judge in Louisiana refused to marry a mixed-race couple, so it's still a pretty sore point, and an embarrassment to my country. One of many, sigh...
Also, the Doctor telling Nixon to tape everything? Heee, that'll only lead to trouble.
On the whole, though, the first two episodes of this season have been very distressing. I know, I know, that's what they want, but it's not what I need right now. Not that I'm giving up, but it's not exactly doing wonders for my mood.
And don't even get me started on Fringe...