Doctor Who: Let's Kill Hitler
Aug. 27th, 2011 08:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethHrm. I don't know, I feel like I'm going to have to watch again to react to this one. I think I like all the ingredients, I just didn't know quite what to do with them while they happened.
This is River's first meeting with the Doctor. And it's when we find out Amy did raise Melody... or rather Amelia did, as her best friend. Who was in prison a lot. That's a very time travel-y way to do things.
I was reading the latest three books, which are all about time travel in ways that DW doesn't usually do, about things you can do with time travel and things you cannot, bits of history you can change, paradoxes that must happen, paradox that cannot happen. From this I deduced that this half of the series would be seriously timey wimey. And, well, seriously yeah.
An element I had not guessed was a Clue was the compression size change bit. I like. It's the same tech as the Slitheen only really really more so. So there's a human ship full of humans. It's cool. Like the Terminator with more crew.
Humans using time travel this way is new and deeply creepy. Hunting down the dead and taking them at the end of their lives to give them hell? It's not playing god, it's playing the devil.
Unfortunately I find it completely plausible.
It's a thread with a bazillion stories dangling on it.
When they said biggest war criminal I rather thought they were talking about the Doctor.
The whole bit with the Doctor dying and the voice interface and 'guilt!' and the only way to find someone he wasn't guilty about was to go back to when they'd barely met... yeah, that's character Stuff.
I think I love every single line the doctor says after he finds out he's dying. And him stopping to change. And the sonic cane. And everything.
All these doubles and people turning into other people and not being who they seem to be seems like Clues. And The Doctor lies. Rule one.
And we get told what the Silence are. The really obvious question. Now we get to try and figure it out all the rest of the season. Win.
I kind of love the symmetry in the first meetings. And the wedding, with him in the same suit, what was she thinking? And he's already promised to marry her. And it's all interlinked and complicated and really interesting fun.
So she could regenerate, but now she's used them all up. And, also, mentions again that regenerations can run out, and once again kills the Doctor in front of us. So River regenerated from being a little kid to being a toddler and grew up again as Mels and then regenerated again to get older looking... but probably wasn't as old as she looked yet? Or was she even older? She mentioned making herself look younger as she went along just for teh lols, so presumably age is consciously tweakable. So she could be any age as Mels. But decided to be her mum's best friend. For fun.
River's timeline is weird.
Also, I wish people wouldn't use the word psychopath. Pretty much ever.
The TARDIS teaches River to fly the TARDIS. No wonder she knows more than the Doctor. And he really wasn't available that day...
I think it's bugging me that Mels, the get in trouble a lot wave a gun around bad kid, was cast as a black girl. She regenerates into River, who is white, who becomes a better person. I think there's a problem in there.
The Amy/Rory stuff from when they were kids, with him following him around and her thinking he's gay... Er, how much of fandom is pretty much thinking he's gay+Amy? ANYway, I kind of like it, that taking him for granted background, I think that's what we were seeing already.
And then it's Melody who clues them in. River did time travel to make her parents get together. Hello Back to the Future.
The Hitler and Nazi stuff wasn't just a background setting. But in weird themey ways. And, also, because River goes and shoots a lot of people, and if they're Nazis it's less upsetting. But then she tries the uniform on. It's all complicated.
Still, the Doctor saved Hitler's life. That would piss off quite a lot of people.
And it's still almost, pretty much, background to a bunch of relationship stuff with Amy and Rory and River and the Doctor. (There's something in there about the Doctor naming River. He told her her true name, from his point of view. Symmetry.) Amy was making stuff happen, too. Not just slinking around or being supportive. Had a plan, made the squiddly things attack, made the ship give her answers. Doing Things. Is good.
I like lots of the different bits, and I think I'll like rewatching it, now I know how they fit together.
ETA: Danced with everyone at the wedding! The women were all brilliant, the men were a bit shy...
:-D
This is River's first meeting with the Doctor. And it's when we find out Amy did raise Melody... or rather Amelia did, as her best friend. Who was in prison a lot. That's a very time travel-y way to do things.
I was reading the latest three books, which are all about time travel in ways that DW doesn't usually do, about things you can do with time travel and things you cannot, bits of history you can change, paradoxes that must happen, paradox that cannot happen. From this I deduced that this half of the series would be seriously timey wimey. And, well, seriously yeah.
An element I had not guessed was a Clue was the compression size change bit. I like. It's the same tech as the Slitheen only really really more so. So there's a human ship full of humans. It's cool. Like the Terminator with more crew.
Humans using time travel this way is new and deeply creepy. Hunting down the dead and taking them at the end of their lives to give them hell? It's not playing god, it's playing the devil.
Unfortunately I find it completely plausible.
It's a thread with a bazillion stories dangling on it.
When they said biggest war criminal I rather thought they were talking about the Doctor.
The whole bit with the Doctor dying and the voice interface and 'guilt!' and the only way to find someone he wasn't guilty about was to go back to when they'd barely met... yeah, that's character Stuff.
I think I love every single line the doctor says after he finds out he's dying. And him stopping to change. And the sonic cane. And everything.
All these doubles and people turning into other people and not being who they seem to be seems like Clues. And The Doctor lies. Rule one.
And we get told what the Silence are. The really obvious question. Now we get to try and figure it out all the rest of the season. Win.
I kind of love the symmetry in the first meetings. And the wedding, with him in the same suit, what was she thinking? And he's already promised to marry her. And it's all interlinked and complicated and really interesting fun.
So she could regenerate, but now she's used them all up. And, also, mentions again that regenerations can run out, and once again kills the Doctor in front of us. So River regenerated from being a little kid to being a toddler and grew up again as Mels and then regenerated again to get older looking... but probably wasn't as old as she looked yet? Or was she even older? She mentioned making herself look younger as she went along just for teh lols, so presumably age is consciously tweakable. So she could be any age as Mels. But decided to be her mum's best friend. For fun.
River's timeline is weird.
Also, I wish people wouldn't use the word psychopath. Pretty much ever.
The TARDIS teaches River to fly the TARDIS. No wonder she knows more than the Doctor. And he really wasn't available that day...
I think it's bugging me that Mels, the get in trouble a lot wave a gun around bad kid, was cast as a black girl. She regenerates into River, who is white, who becomes a better person. I think there's a problem in there.
The Amy/Rory stuff from when they were kids, with him following him around and her thinking he's gay... Er, how much of fandom is pretty much thinking he's gay+Amy? ANYway, I kind of like it, that taking him for granted background, I think that's what we were seeing already.
And then it's Melody who clues them in. River did time travel to make her parents get together. Hello Back to the Future.
The Hitler and Nazi stuff wasn't just a background setting. But in weird themey ways. And, also, because River goes and shoots a lot of people, and if they're Nazis it's less upsetting. But then she tries the uniform on. It's all complicated.
Still, the Doctor saved Hitler's life. That would piss off quite a lot of people.
And it's still almost, pretty much, background to a bunch of relationship stuff with Amy and Rory and River and the Doctor. (There's something in there about the Doctor naming River. He told her her true name, from his point of view. Symmetry.) Amy was making stuff happen, too. Not just slinking around or being supportive. Had a plan, made the squiddly things attack, made the ship give her answers. Doing Things. Is good.
I like lots of the different bits, and I think I'll like rewatching it, now I know how they fit together.
ETA: Danced with everyone at the wedding! The women were all brilliant, the men were a bit shy...
:-D
no subject
Date: 2011-08-28 01:22 pm (UTC)His name could be like a password to hack his biology like that ;-)
no subject
Date: 2011-08-28 02:38 pm (UTC)I'm still heartbroken for Amy and Rory, and it doesn't get any better knowing what we know now about Melody-River and how she grew up. I hope we get to see some healing for the two of them.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-30 06:53 pm (UTC)If time can be rewritten, and the Doctor is willing to unwrite himself to save the universe, one wonders at the scale of crisis that would lead to unwriting River Song. River died the first time they met so that their history together would stay exactly the same, not one line changed. But that involved saving his life. If the choice was to save his life, and him never meet her, or leave him dead having known her, the choice could go the other way.
If the Silence are connected to River and the cracks in the universe are connected to River and the TARDIS exploding was when River was driving and the Doctor was only ever endangered in the Library because River called him there, then what happens if River never happens?
No exploding the TARDIS with River in it, no cracks.
No crack, no meeting Amelia Pond, but she still grows up with Rory and has a baby Melody who grows up in Leadworth.
But no Hello, Sweetie and no fixing the Library or the Byzantium.
No Pandorica at all though, since the enemies wouldn't team up to stop some explosion that would never happen.
The Silence is still the big mystery though. Don't know if it would still exist without her.
I don't think the series will undo River Song, but it makes an interesting temptation for her, like the Trickster or Turn Left. Here's the universe without you, what does it look like?
no subject
Date: 2011-08-30 07:01 pm (UTC)It'll be interesting to see if Moffat can pull this storyline off, that's for certain.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-08 08:41 am (UTC)yes, yes, yes, yes, yes