Big Finish - Doctor Who - The Last
Jan. 6th, 2015 08:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethThis one was going so well. No mind control, no forced marriages, and while Charley got paralysed from the neck down straight away this is an audio so it didn't actually stop her having an actually larger than usual role.
And then, 'mercy killing' reared its ugly head again. Ablist arseholes. TW for suicide technically, since it's Charley suggesting it.
(Oh, I kept listening, actually TW for actual suicide. And I do mean main characters. I should label these damn things.)
Everyone keeps on repeating that C'rizz had to kill his girlfriend and it was the only way to free her from a living death. Charley draws parallels between that and her current paralysed state. Except, guess what? The exact precise same thing happened to Charley back then and she was cured of it! That's not fucking death. And the way everyone ignores it forever after makes the entire arc make no sense whatsoever. Plus it has the Doctor and his companions all take a moral position I consider abhorrent.
Charley is framing her depressed newly disabled suicidal ideation as some kind of noble sacrifice to not be a burden and get the others killed. C'rizz isn't having any of it but it's still damn ugly.
So then there's weirdness, ghosts, and disturbing pillow murder. Because C'rizz walked away and left a paralyzed person with someone everyone in the story is convinced is a madwoman, who had been killing people already. Are we supposed to like him? He's an ass.
Story has given us enough clues we know dead isn't the end, but still, suck.
Combining a request for assisted suicide with a story where there's actually a new life without pain and fear and so forth seems dangerous and bad.
(and recurring theme 'not thinking straight' has turned up again. great. what will they blame it on this week?)
okay, so, if the requiem ghost is saying everyone must die then everyone's going to get dead next? I... suspect I won't like having listened to this one.
Also the 'dying isn't so bad' pitch is creepy.
aaaaaand we're back to the Doctor's misery and suicidal ideation. Having lost his whole universe he says 'death is becoming an attractive alternative'. Entirely plausible, of course, but why do they think we want to listen to this?
Obviously there'll be a bit where he decides to live again, yaay affirmation blah blah, but in between he keeps going back to abject misery so, you know, bad. (Aaaaand actually? That ending? No, not really, it just kind of ends.)
Also they're setting it up to be tricksy because they're in a new universe and can make the rules whatever they like. So everyone will die and then after game over there's play again. Okay, fine as far as it goes, but if they can do anything at all then it all gets blah, and why do they want a story where the only way out is for everyone to die? Catharsis? Who had what kind of issues at the time, and did they get appropriate help?
I am very fed up of this. You might be able to tell.
"I never hated anyone in my life [bad guy name] but I hate you now with every fibre of my being"
... they wanted to do that to the Doctor? Screw that.
He went from "I never really thought of myself as suicidal" to "oh what the hell" and blew himself up.
this sucks really really really a lot. Really really. a lot.
Okay, so, they were doing a horror of war thing, total nuclear annihilation, plus a those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. The whole planet stuck in a cycle of everything dies, it just kicks off again afterwards.
And so far so cold war horror, but why then leave it at a victory parade for a successful diplomatic resolution? The Doctor, Charley and C'rizz turned up and died. Nobody saved the world. They just died. We didn't see any causal difference, it just went boom, then victory. Why ... why? Really big why? Question marks all over the damn thing. Who thought this was a good idea and what were they trying to say?
If what you're after is creepy post nuclear crazy people in a bunker, yeah, it did what it set out to do there.
It's just I'm trying to figure out how it's a Doctor Who story when it's resolved by the Doctor committing suicide. Not even calling it a sacrifice like the last time he got himself blown up, actually using the S word. The parallel is probably what they're going for, but I am not happy about it. I don't care the story set up a counter factual where he could do it and save the universe and survive it (again), I think it's damn ugly they set him up to do it.
I'm actively angry about this and likely to remain so.
I'm realising it's not just that I dislike Charley, I very strongly and actively dislike almost every story I've heard her in.
Why did I keep buying them if they're like this?
... aside from the subscription thing meaning there's months/years between them and they alternate with other Doctors.
Maybe I'm just angry about different things these days.
>:-( to the lot of them.
And then, 'mercy killing' reared its ugly head again. Ablist arseholes. TW for suicide technically, since it's Charley suggesting it.
(Oh, I kept listening, actually TW for actual suicide. And I do mean main characters. I should label these damn things.)
Everyone keeps on repeating that C'rizz had to kill his girlfriend and it was the only way to free her from a living death. Charley draws parallels between that and her current paralysed state. Except, guess what? The exact precise same thing happened to Charley back then and she was cured of it! That's not fucking death. And the way everyone ignores it forever after makes the entire arc make no sense whatsoever. Plus it has the Doctor and his companions all take a moral position I consider abhorrent.
Charley is framing her depressed newly disabled suicidal ideation as some kind of noble sacrifice to not be a burden and get the others killed. C'rizz isn't having any of it but it's still damn ugly.
So then there's weirdness, ghosts, and disturbing pillow murder. Because C'rizz walked away and left a paralyzed person with someone everyone in the story is convinced is a madwoman, who had been killing people already. Are we supposed to like him? He's an ass.
Story has given us enough clues we know dead isn't the end, but still, suck.
Combining a request for assisted suicide with a story where there's actually a new life without pain and fear and so forth seems dangerous and bad.
(and recurring theme 'not thinking straight' has turned up again. great. what will they blame it on this week?)
okay, so, if the requiem ghost is saying everyone must die then everyone's going to get dead next? I... suspect I won't like having listened to this one.
Also the 'dying isn't so bad' pitch is creepy.
aaaaaand we're back to the Doctor's misery and suicidal ideation. Having lost his whole universe he says 'death is becoming an attractive alternative'. Entirely plausible, of course, but why do they think we want to listen to this?
Obviously there'll be a bit where he decides to live again, yaay affirmation blah blah, but in between he keeps going back to abject misery so, you know, bad. (Aaaaand actually? That ending? No, not really, it just kind of ends.)
Also they're setting it up to be tricksy because they're in a new universe and can make the rules whatever they like. So everyone will die and then after game over there's play again. Okay, fine as far as it goes, but if they can do anything at all then it all gets blah, and why do they want a story where the only way out is for everyone to die? Catharsis? Who had what kind of issues at the time, and did they get appropriate help?
I am very fed up of this. You might be able to tell.
"I never hated anyone in my life [bad guy name] but I hate you now with every fibre of my being"
... they wanted to do that to the Doctor? Screw that.
He went from "I never really thought of myself as suicidal" to "oh what the hell" and blew himself up.
this sucks really really really a lot. Really really. a lot.
Okay, so, they were doing a horror of war thing, total nuclear annihilation, plus a those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. The whole planet stuck in a cycle of everything dies, it just kicks off again afterwards.
And so far so cold war horror, but why then leave it at a victory parade for a successful diplomatic resolution? The Doctor, Charley and C'rizz turned up and died. Nobody saved the world. They just died. We didn't see any causal difference, it just went boom, then victory. Why ... why? Really big why? Question marks all over the damn thing. Who thought this was a good idea and what were they trying to say?
If what you're after is creepy post nuclear crazy people in a bunker, yeah, it did what it set out to do there.
It's just I'm trying to figure out how it's a Doctor Who story when it's resolved by the Doctor committing suicide. Not even calling it a sacrifice like the last time he got himself blown up, actually using the S word. The parallel is probably what they're going for, but I am not happy about it. I don't care the story set up a counter factual where he could do it and save the universe and survive it (again), I think it's damn ugly they set him up to do it.
I'm actively angry about this and likely to remain so.
I'm realising it's not just that I dislike Charley, I very strongly and actively dislike almost every story I've heard her in.
Why did I keep buying them if they're like this?
... aside from the subscription thing meaning there's months/years between them and they alternate with other Doctors.
Maybe I'm just angry about different things these days.
>:-( to the lot of them.