Doctor Who: The Time of the Doctor
Dec. 26th, 2013 01:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabeth... all the names are Of the Doctor, that's not confusing at all, is it?
So, once again the question proved more interesting than the answer. All that bit with the Silence, the answer fits together, his name as the password and trying to stop the Time War starting again, and all that bit with him thinking he's run out of regenerations explains why the messing around with the War Doctor, and click click tidy. Except I just watched the 50th again and at the end of that he's all for bringing Gallifrey back and going home, so this one is just, like, taking the football out of the way, with a side order of cake and eat it. Because no he doesn't get to go home, but home can play magic glow fairy. And if regeneration energy is that powerful then ... no, they can only blow themselves up a dozen times each, they can still lose a war.
I'm a bit grumpy. It seems like the last couple of episodes have been pretty explicitly Moffat getting in an argument with RTD and kicking over all his toys. And I don't know why that makes me grumpy, because goodness knows I've done enough of that down the pub, but it don't feel like playing. Neither does 'a whole new regeneration cycle' feel like a pay off. ... he mentioned getting the gold thingy from the Master, that time the Master was promised a whole new regeneration cycle, so Gallifrey can do that, here's the canon citation for the picky people, buuuuuuut... Gallifrey likes him now? And aren't they supposed to be in a frozen moment in time, so how can they do anything? Well, Time Lords, obviously. And... the Master never got what he was promised, which don't seem fair... and... I don't know why I'm grumpy.
Also, the truth field thing, when did that wear off? Cause he lied about having a plan. And it never seemed particularly important. Blah.
Bringing back Amelia but not River was just odd.
I did like the bit about change and how we're all lots of people, but I didn't like the contrived feeling of him going young just so he could make a speech. I mean, it's not implausible because it's DW and nothing is implausible, it's just it's set up so Matt Smith can talk to the audience about how he'll always remember being the Doctor, it kind of breaks the frame a bit?
Whyyyyyy am I grumpy?
I don't like how the Doctor relates to women now. Oh hello pretty psychopath, sexual tension, blah blah blah. Really? This we need to retell a lot?
I like that the church wasn't evil and that the boss lady could fight off the Dalek side of her, except angry doesn't fight the Daleks angry IS the Daleks, so that was a bit stupid. Also, there's bugger all use having a confession that you forget. That's upside down.
This is still not why I'm grumpy.
The story seemed stitched together from visuals that would go in the ad to create a mostly false impression. A lot of threats popped up so briefly you wonder how they're worth the budget.
It wasn't as impressive as its advertising?
I keep poking it to find the heart. So there's the bit with her gran saying she wanted a moment to never change and Clara feels like that about her Doctor and then he keeps getting old, and it's his turn to do it on fast forward this time, and then he goes young again and she's like yaay stay like this only he'd already changed really so no he changes into the new one. So that's the heart, that's the bit anyone's having feelings about.
And Gallifrey is trapped in a moment in time, so it should be the never-changing. It's the Doctor's home, so he's got some frozen nostalgia about it, like when he talked to Martha about it and failed to mention the war or everyone trying to kill everyone. The Doctor wants Gallifrey to be the old way but has to deal with how it has changed. And Gallifrey needs to regenerate after the damage.
... but none of that Gallifrey stuff had anything to do with anything. It was just magic wish fairy crack in the wall. All the things the crack previously meant about sucking stuff out of history entirely (hey do you think Gallifrey stole the ducks from Amy's village? Does Gallifrey have everything that fell through the crack? That could get crowded)... it was just a crack, with something listening on the other side.
And it made a truth field, and really, that should have mattered more. I mean, give me the ingredients regeneration, Gallifrey, truth field, and this story is not what I'd get out of them.
All them monsters mattered about as much as the children's drawings of them monsters. We never saw them cost anything but time.
So why have them?
Well the Doctor gets to demonstrate how awesome he is for a few hundred years of stopping them. Proof of courage and companionship like when he turns up with a broken bit of Dalek. And also he looks after childrens for a few hundred years and fixes things so they're better than ever. And Gallifrey is watching? Decides to like him from the available evidence?
I do like Clara's answer to who is the Doctor. Doctor is Doctor, you've seen him. The other answer would be boring, and also irrelevant.
I'm just having trouble liking the story that got to that answer. It felt like... like they could have had a long 'previously' montage and meant the same thing. Except that's not true, because the Doctor stayed, still, talking to the same few people, telling the truth all the time. The Doctor lies, is rule one, and this guy can't. He can just leave stuff out and trick people that way. So I was going to say it would change him a lot to take his lies away, but he just got tricksier. And then lied about having a plan anyway.
I know it's hard to convey that centuries have happened, but this story really sincerely didn't. The same buildings, the same costumes, the same tech level, the Doctor fixing things in little ways but nothing we actually saw, it didn't feel like time passing. The Doctor got old in an unchanging single day. Moff does like his time travel, and the harder I think on it the more this is Fireplace flipped. It just doesn't work. I mean, you have generic childrens, and some of them grow up, but we don't see it, and then the Doctor is hanging out with small children for a few hundred years? And he doesn't have a best friend any more. No companion except Clara. What's up with that? And if you have a whole society being reshaped by the Doctor and his stories, is that really what you get? It's too fairytale, where a century can pass and it's all just castles, even though actually a lot of things changed about castles over the centuries. I can't feel it, it don't give us the pieces. The Doctor stays and loses people over and over and over. That should matter more than stupid monsters getting blown up again.
Also if the signal is going all over time and space but everyone arrives at once, are they all time travellers? Seems like. How do you run out of enemy if they're time travellers? You pretty much don't. You can't win a time war by sitting still waiting for them to arrive. ... you can't win a time war.
I'm grumpy and I can't pin down why.
I liked 11's farewell speech about everyone changing. I liked the answer about which name is the important one, the one he chose and lives by.
... I didn't like the plot, the thin characters, or very much of the experience of watching.
Boo.
Now I'm annoyed at me I couldn't just like it.
And it don't help I'm not keen on the new guy. For values of 'not keen on' that have a lot of dislike held over from previous characters he's played, even knowing how irrelevant/unfair that is.
I hope other people liked this episode better than I did.
So, once again the question proved more interesting than the answer. All that bit with the Silence, the answer fits together, his name as the password and trying to stop the Time War starting again, and all that bit with him thinking he's run out of regenerations explains why the messing around with the War Doctor, and click click tidy. Except I just watched the 50th again and at the end of that he's all for bringing Gallifrey back and going home, so this one is just, like, taking the football out of the way, with a side order of cake and eat it. Because no he doesn't get to go home, but home can play magic glow fairy. And if regeneration energy is that powerful then ... no, they can only blow themselves up a dozen times each, they can still lose a war.
I'm a bit grumpy. It seems like the last couple of episodes have been pretty explicitly Moffat getting in an argument with RTD and kicking over all his toys. And I don't know why that makes me grumpy, because goodness knows I've done enough of that down the pub, but it don't feel like playing. Neither does 'a whole new regeneration cycle' feel like a pay off. ... he mentioned getting the gold thingy from the Master, that time the Master was promised a whole new regeneration cycle, so Gallifrey can do that, here's the canon citation for the picky people, buuuuuuut... Gallifrey likes him now? And aren't they supposed to be in a frozen moment in time, so how can they do anything? Well, Time Lords, obviously. And... the Master never got what he was promised, which don't seem fair... and... I don't know why I'm grumpy.
Also, the truth field thing, when did that wear off? Cause he lied about having a plan. And it never seemed particularly important. Blah.
Bringing back Amelia but not River was just odd.
I did like the bit about change and how we're all lots of people, but I didn't like the contrived feeling of him going young just so he could make a speech. I mean, it's not implausible because it's DW and nothing is implausible, it's just it's set up so Matt Smith can talk to the audience about how he'll always remember being the Doctor, it kind of breaks the frame a bit?
Whyyyyyy am I grumpy?
I don't like how the Doctor relates to women now. Oh hello pretty psychopath, sexual tension, blah blah blah. Really? This we need to retell a lot?
I like that the church wasn't evil and that the boss lady could fight off the Dalek side of her, except angry doesn't fight the Daleks angry IS the Daleks, so that was a bit stupid. Also, there's bugger all use having a confession that you forget. That's upside down.
This is still not why I'm grumpy.
The story seemed stitched together from visuals that would go in the ad to create a mostly false impression. A lot of threats popped up so briefly you wonder how they're worth the budget.
It wasn't as impressive as its advertising?
I keep poking it to find the heart. So there's the bit with her gran saying she wanted a moment to never change and Clara feels like that about her Doctor and then he keeps getting old, and it's his turn to do it on fast forward this time, and then he goes young again and she's like yaay stay like this only he'd already changed really so no he changes into the new one. So that's the heart, that's the bit anyone's having feelings about.
And Gallifrey is trapped in a moment in time, so it should be the never-changing. It's the Doctor's home, so he's got some frozen nostalgia about it, like when he talked to Martha about it and failed to mention the war or everyone trying to kill everyone. The Doctor wants Gallifrey to be the old way but has to deal with how it has changed. And Gallifrey needs to regenerate after the damage.
... but none of that Gallifrey stuff had anything to do with anything. It was just magic wish fairy crack in the wall. All the things the crack previously meant about sucking stuff out of history entirely (hey do you think Gallifrey stole the ducks from Amy's village? Does Gallifrey have everything that fell through the crack? That could get crowded)... it was just a crack, with something listening on the other side.
And it made a truth field, and really, that should have mattered more. I mean, give me the ingredients regeneration, Gallifrey, truth field, and this story is not what I'd get out of them.
All them monsters mattered about as much as the children's drawings of them monsters. We never saw them cost anything but time.
So why have them?
Well the Doctor gets to demonstrate how awesome he is for a few hundred years of stopping them. Proof of courage and companionship like when he turns up with a broken bit of Dalek. And also he looks after childrens for a few hundred years and fixes things so they're better than ever. And Gallifrey is watching? Decides to like him from the available evidence?
I do like Clara's answer to who is the Doctor. Doctor is Doctor, you've seen him. The other answer would be boring, and also irrelevant.
I'm just having trouble liking the story that got to that answer. It felt like... like they could have had a long 'previously' montage and meant the same thing. Except that's not true, because the Doctor stayed, still, talking to the same few people, telling the truth all the time. The Doctor lies, is rule one, and this guy can't. He can just leave stuff out and trick people that way. So I was going to say it would change him a lot to take his lies away, but he just got tricksier. And then lied about having a plan anyway.
I know it's hard to convey that centuries have happened, but this story really sincerely didn't. The same buildings, the same costumes, the same tech level, the Doctor fixing things in little ways but nothing we actually saw, it didn't feel like time passing. The Doctor got old in an unchanging single day. Moff does like his time travel, and the harder I think on it the more this is Fireplace flipped. It just doesn't work. I mean, you have generic childrens, and some of them grow up, but we don't see it, and then the Doctor is hanging out with small children for a few hundred years? And he doesn't have a best friend any more. No companion except Clara. What's up with that? And if you have a whole society being reshaped by the Doctor and his stories, is that really what you get? It's too fairytale, where a century can pass and it's all just castles, even though actually a lot of things changed about castles over the centuries. I can't feel it, it don't give us the pieces. The Doctor stays and loses people over and over and over. That should matter more than stupid monsters getting blown up again.
Also if the signal is going all over time and space but everyone arrives at once, are they all time travellers? Seems like. How do you run out of enemy if they're time travellers? You pretty much don't. You can't win a time war by sitting still waiting for them to arrive. ... you can't win a time war.
I'm grumpy and I can't pin down why.
I liked 11's farewell speech about everyone changing. I liked the answer about which name is the important one, the one he chose and lives by.
... I didn't like the plot, the thin characters, or very much of the experience of watching.
Boo.
Now I'm annoyed at me I couldn't just like it.
And it don't help I'm not keen on the new guy. For values of 'not keen on' that have a lot of dislike held over from previous characters he's played, even knowing how irrelevant/unfair that is.
I hope other people liked this episode better than I did.
no subject
Date: 2013-12-26 02:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-26 04:39 am (UTC)Besides, I thought River gave up all of her remaining regenerations to save the Doctor.
no subject
Date: 2013-12-26 05:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-26 10:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-26 04:37 am (UTC)Kitty liked it, and she thinks it'll make more sense after a second watching. I'm not sure it'll ever make sense; it just seemed like a lot of "oooh, cool idea!" one after another.
Maybe I'm getting too old for this sort of thing. But I really liked the first Matt Smith season, it just seemed to fall apart after that. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens next. I just don't trust Moffat anymore. *sigh*
no subject
Date: 2013-12-26 05:25 am (UTC)