Big Finish audios 52 Scherzo
Jan. 2nd, 2015 05:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethYou know that one crackfic that you just kind of look at a blink a lot? Because its issues have issues? And whenever you think its at maximum weird it just goes further?
... yeah.
Or, no, because this is more horror? It's just really weird. Really, really weird.
So, I don't really know what to write about this one. But I think not listening to it would be a more life enriching choice than listening, on the whole.
Oh, and it needs warnings for body horror and cannibalism, plus the Doctor's continued issues with choosing to die (heroically or otherwise) that pretty much need a suicide warning, even if they do end with choosing to live heroically instead.
The Doctor and Charley arrive in a blank white space and talk about their feelings, kind of sort of. So far so radio play. But, well, it gets weird, and it gets gross. And also they're having all their senses and feelings taken away from them at intervals, so the conversation is mostly about how the Doctor doesn't feel, until it builds up to him saying he doesn't know how he feels. So it's a bit confused and unsatisfying, to my mind, especially since it makes clear that all the emotions they're having are artificially stimulated, and ends with some really weird hallucinatory stuff.
It's like, at the end of the previous episode, Charley wants to skip the feelings parts, so here they are stuck somewhere with only sound working for them so pretty much all they can possibly do is talk about feelings. Fair enough. But then what they do is have her sulk at him being fed up at her? Like, he decided to die to protect her, and she's refusing to be protected, so now they're sulking at each other.
If that conversation happened wrapped around an ordinary adventure, that'd be cool. Though they keep saying 'love' as if it's a word that makes the same sense to everyone at all times, and what they really need to do is have a serious talk about what love even means if Charley can possibly say the Doctor doesn't love her. Of course he loves her, he risked the universe to save her, as he points out here. Her complaints only make sense if she's talking about specific expressions and expectations of romantic love.
And at that point the weirdness and issues concentrate. Because in this the Doctor and Charley... their bodies join and they press their lips together and they're going to spend the rest of their lives together and they, well, there's an entity or two they refer to as their daughter, and all of this is really clearly taking the tropes of romantic and physical love, and then making them all about
body horror and cannibalism.
Because they're literally physically merging into one biological entity. They press their bodies together and lock lips so they can become one actual flesh. And there's an entity they keep finding and eating, and eventually it grows into looking like Charley and she starts referring to it as her daughter. And refuses to eat any more of it, but they'd ate it quite a lot by then.
So, basically, this is epically messed up, to a degree it seems not worth critting it because it's just being horror about feelings and sex and reproduction and being replaced by your children and all that being a person stuff. It's messed up and it knows it and the only issue is
Why is this Doctor Who?
Sometimes with these I think they sit down and think 'what would they never do on the TV?'
And when you're talking stuff like cast of thousands, epic space battles, or simply bringing the old Doctors back without their current appearance being an issue, well, fair enough.
But if it's more, as in this case, 'what would they never do on TV because they couldn't broadcast it before about one in the morning', well, that's... that's a problem.
... yeah.
Or, no, because this is more horror? It's just really weird. Really, really weird.
So, I don't really know what to write about this one. But I think not listening to it would be a more life enriching choice than listening, on the whole.
Oh, and it needs warnings for body horror and cannibalism, plus the Doctor's continued issues with choosing to die (heroically or otherwise) that pretty much need a suicide warning, even if they do end with choosing to live heroically instead.
The Doctor and Charley arrive in a blank white space and talk about their feelings, kind of sort of. So far so radio play. But, well, it gets weird, and it gets gross. And also they're having all their senses and feelings taken away from them at intervals, so the conversation is mostly about how the Doctor doesn't feel, until it builds up to him saying he doesn't know how he feels. So it's a bit confused and unsatisfying, to my mind, especially since it makes clear that all the emotions they're having are artificially stimulated, and ends with some really weird hallucinatory stuff.
It's like, at the end of the previous episode, Charley wants to skip the feelings parts, so here they are stuck somewhere with only sound working for them so pretty much all they can possibly do is talk about feelings. Fair enough. But then what they do is have her sulk at him being fed up at her? Like, he decided to die to protect her, and she's refusing to be protected, so now they're sulking at each other.
If that conversation happened wrapped around an ordinary adventure, that'd be cool. Though they keep saying 'love' as if it's a word that makes the same sense to everyone at all times, and what they really need to do is have a serious talk about what love even means if Charley can possibly say the Doctor doesn't love her. Of course he loves her, he risked the universe to save her, as he points out here. Her complaints only make sense if she's talking about specific expressions and expectations of romantic love.
And at that point the weirdness and issues concentrate. Because in this the Doctor and Charley... their bodies join and they press their lips together and they're going to spend the rest of their lives together and they, well, there's an entity or two they refer to as their daughter, and all of this is really clearly taking the tropes of romantic and physical love, and then making them all about
body horror and cannibalism.
Because they're literally physically merging into one biological entity. They press their bodies together and lock lips so they can become one actual flesh. And there's an entity they keep finding and eating, and eventually it grows into looking like Charley and she starts referring to it as her daughter. And refuses to eat any more of it, but they'd ate it quite a lot by then.
So, basically, this is epically messed up, to a degree it seems not worth critting it because it's just being horror about feelings and sex and reproduction and being replaced by your children and all that being a person stuff. It's messed up and it knows it and the only issue is
Why is this Doctor Who?
Sometimes with these I think they sit down and think 'what would they never do on the TV?'
And when you're talking stuff like cast of thousands, epic space battles, or simply bringing the old Doctors back without their current appearance being an issue, well, fair enough.
But if it's more, as in this case, 'what would they never do on TV because they couldn't broadcast it before about one in the morning', well, that's... that's a problem.