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Fruit of the loom
As is now becoming a regular practice, my review of the latest Doctor Who episode.
Doctor Who, 04x06, "The Doctor's Daughter"
So I'd kind of been simultaneously looking forward to and dreading this episode for weeks. All the pieces were in place for this to be a completely awesome episode, but all the pieces were in place for it to be a completely god-awful episode too. Fortunately, it fell a lot closer to the former than the latter, though it did have a few moments of mediocrity.
First off, the titular character. Just by virtue of her pedigree, it would have been SO EASY for her to be a massive, horrifying Mary Sue. Fortunately, she isn't, and while the writing helped a good portion of the credit should go to Georgia Moffett's portrayal, which managed to be likable and cute and somewhat naive without being cloying or stupid. I also liked her ability to ignore the Doctor's pissiness and persist in trying to get a straight answer, just so she can learn what she needs to know. (For all four people who don't already know, Moffett is in fact the daughter of Fifth Doctor actor Peter Davison [who showed up in "Time Crash" between seasons], and so the Doctor's daughter is in fact the Doctor's daughter.)
As for the regular cast, emo!Doctor is emo, which sometimes really worked (the Time War scenes) and sometimes really didn't. Also, his teetery moral high horse is still extant: especially "You need to get yourself a better dictionary. And when you do, look up genocide and you'll see a little picture of me there. And the caption'll read 'Over my dead body'" (perhaps he should have just stopped that sentence after "there," it'd be more accurate).
Donna is awesome as usual: we see the return of Supertemp, and once again she serves as the Doctor's conscience in her attempts to get him to acknowledge Jenny's existence as something other than an "echo" or a "soldier" (the scene where she has the Doctor listen to Jenny's two hearts is quite impressive, and shows that Catherine Tate doesn't need to turn on the waterworks to give an emotionally powerful performance).
And while Martha's storyline is actually not that relevant to the overarching plot, it does give her a chance to shine in her ability to befriend the Hath and in the way that she almost becomes the Doctor herself, with Peck the Hath as her ill-fated companion. The scene where Peck dies also shows us why Martha doesn't want to travel with the Doctor anymore; not only do people continually suffer and die around her wherever she goes with him, but frequently it happens because of her (see: her entire family at the end of S3). That's why I didn't find her gutwrenching sobs at Peck's death particularly OTT; it's not just that someone she knew died, but that he died to save her, in a way that I imagined twinged all her guilt buttons over The Year That Never Was and all the other people who suffered because of her and the Doctor's presence throughout S3 (Joan Redfern, her maid friend who was taken over by the Family of Blood, 10% of the earth's population [though they got better], and really everyone affected by Saxon!Master, including the Toclafane).
Also, how cute was it when the Hath were petting Martha's head? SUPERCUTE, Y/Y
In continuing arcs, we get to see more about the Doctor's rather complex relationship with the military and with guns. Now, I really do wish they could write him vaguely consistently in this respect - if it truly is a response to the Time War, it's awfully delayed (given that Nine clearly didn't like guns or the military but was willing to use them/condone them), and I refuse to believe that it's entirely brought on by the death ofhis woobie the Master. However, I did like the way in which this led to more info about the Time War, and Jenny forcing him to re-evaluate both himself and her (after all, if she's "just a soldier," what does that make him?):
Really, so much of this episode seems to be dealing with the fallout of the Time War and of Gallifrey that it's no surprise that the background to that clip is a new rendition of "This is Gallifrey: Our Childhood, Our Home"; it's only a surprise that we don't get more of that song as background music throughout. The Doctor talks more in detail about his original family (who he seems to believe are ALL dead, which admittedly is not new but makes it even more likely that Susan is no longer in the picture). He also seems to have put the Time Lords in general on a pedestal, which is understandable but a little puzzling; after all, while speaking ill of the dead is rather gauche, they DID frequently treat him like utter crap. I can see being sad about people like Susan and Romana and Leela, but it seems that the Doctor has willfully forgotten stuff like the Time Lords wiping Jamie and Zoe's memories, or forcing him to regenerate into Three, or the crap they attempted to pull on him in every single Old!Who Gallifrey story EVAR.
As for the story itself...overall I thought it was good, and I liked the seven-day war twist. I thought it was really good until Jenny was shot, which made me roll my eyes at YET ANOTHER EXCUSE TO GIVE TEN EMO. Also both![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jokersama and I kept ranting SHE HAS TWO OF 'EM to each other over AIM, and were quite prepared to write off the ep as good but with a crap ending until the REAL ending, when Jenny...doesn't precisely regenerate, but comes back to life. While some folks have argued she was restored to life by the terraforming energy, a la Spock and the Genesis Project from the Star Trek movies, it seemed to me to resemble much more the energy issuing from Ten's mouth in "The Christmas Invasion." So I personally handwave it as another manifestation of the whole "for fifteen hours post-regeneration, things can regrow/change/whatever"...if it applies to regeneration, maybe it applies to generation as well, and the fact that they went to pains to reintroduce the hand Ten regrew then at the opening of the episode perhaps lends itself to that interpretation. But the important thing is that Jenny's still around (though of course the Doctor doesn't know that...yet), and seems quite set to follow her dad's example.
In more ways that one: after all, stealing a ship to travel the universe in, HAY THAT SOUNDS FAMILIAR
Here's hoping she shows up in the specials and/or S5 and/or The Sarah Jane Adventures. I'd like to see her as a companion, as I liked the character and Moffett's portrayal, and I think it could be interesting to see the Doctor kind of trying to teach someone to be a Time Lord (or Lady, in Jenny's case)...especially since the Doctor was so rubbish at it, as Romana regularly made clear. XD
Some general likes/dislikes about the episode:
- Donna's encouragement of the Doctor's relationship with Jenny, and convincing him to accept her, was great. Her "I think you're wrong" was one of the best moments ever for the personal development of the Doctor, I think. And Donna threatening to use her "womanly wiles" was hilarious (especially given what we saw of said wiles in "The Runaway Bride," lol).
- Another great moment: "He saves planets. Rescues civilizations. Defeats terrible creatures. And runs a lot. Seriously, there's an outrageous amount of running involved." And the reiteration of that at the end with Jenny in the shuttle lent what was a hilarious throwaway line a kind of quiet dignity; the way that so often works in Doctor Who is one of the things I like best about the show.
- However, they're getting kind of anvilicious with the whole "something bad is going to happen to Donna" stuff. This week's hint: Donna saying she plans to travel with the Doctor "forever." HOW OMINOUS, and given that the last person to say that ended up crying on an alternate world Norwegian beach, it has rather the effect of a soldier in an army movie showing his fellows a picture of his sweetheart back home. :(
- I also liked the way the episode made it clear that Martha is completely over the Doctor and has moved on and found something on Earth that is just as important, or more, to her...which makes a nice contrast to Sarah Jane (who admittedly very much had her reasons for being the way we saw her in "School Reunion"). She may still enjoy parts of traveling with the Doctor, but she's seen too many awful things to really want to do it full-time again.
- The Doctor holding the gun on Jenny's assassin, but not shooting it, I liked and thought was in character. His insistence that somehow the fact that "he never would" is what they should found their civilization on, however, was WAY more problematic; especially given that while he "never would" NOW, he certainly would, and HAS, in the past (Gallifrey and Skaro didn't exactly destroy themselves with the power of hugs and puppies, not to mention his genocides of the Racnoss and of the Vervoids and [admittedly only mostly successful] of the Daleks and...).
- Is it just me, or is Jenny's creation a nod to the whole "loom" concept in the books? It would seem to argue against it, though, as the Doctor treats this method of conception as rather strongly abnormal. XD
- Of course, Jenny's death was quite reminiscent of that of the Master...once again, the only fellow Gallifreyan in existence, dying in his arms of a gunshot wound. (She was rather less psychotically evil, though. XD) This is perhaps another good reason why the Doctor felt a need to leave early, before Jenny woke up, and why Martha let him.
...And next week, we get Agatha Christie and a giant wasp! :D
Also, I've been reading more Phil Rickman (enkiae would approve)...for those who don't remember, this is the mystery series I recommended a while back featuring an Anglican exorcist named Merrily Watkins. I picked up the first two books (The Wine of Angels and Midwinter of the Spirit), as all I'd read were a couple of later books, and I've really enjoyed both. I'm sending a care package of books to my mom tomorrow (as she had to have foot surgery a couple of weeks back, and is basically stuck on bed rest for the next four weeks and needs something to read so that she doesn't go too stir-crazy), and since I'd raved about them to her she asked me to send them along. :D
Doctor Who, 04x06, "The Doctor's Daughter"
So I'd kind of been simultaneously looking forward to and dreading this episode for weeks. All the pieces were in place for this to be a completely awesome episode, but all the pieces were in place for it to be a completely god-awful episode too. Fortunately, it fell a lot closer to the former than the latter, though it did have a few moments of mediocrity.
First off, the titular character. Just by virtue of her pedigree, it would have been SO EASY for her to be a massive, horrifying Mary Sue. Fortunately, she isn't, and while the writing helped a good portion of the credit should go to Georgia Moffett's portrayal, which managed to be likable and cute and somewhat naive without being cloying or stupid. I also liked her ability to ignore the Doctor's pissiness and persist in trying to get a straight answer, just so she can learn what she needs to know. (For all four people who don't already know, Moffett is in fact the daughter of Fifth Doctor actor Peter Davison [who showed up in "Time Crash" between seasons], and so the Doctor's daughter is in fact the Doctor's daughter.)
As for the regular cast, emo!Doctor is emo, which sometimes really worked (the Time War scenes) and sometimes really didn't. Also, his teetery moral high horse is still extant: especially "You need to get yourself a better dictionary. And when you do, look up genocide and you'll see a little picture of me there. And the caption'll read 'Over my dead body'" (perhaps he should have just stopped that sentence after "there," it'd be more accurate).
Donna is awesome as usual: we see the return of Supertemp, and once again she serves as the Doctor's conscience in her attempts to get him to acknowledge Jenny's existence as something other than an "echo" or a "soldier" (the scene where she has the Doctor listen to Jenny's two hearts is quite impressive, and shows that Catherine Tate doesn't need to turn on the waterworks to give an emotionally powerful performance).
And while Martha's storyline is actually not that relevant to the overarching plot, it does give her a chance to shine in her ability to befriend the Hath and in the way that she almost becomes the Doctor herself, with Peck the Hath as her ill-fated companion. The scene where Peck dies also shows us why Martha doesn't want to travel with the Doctor anymore; not only do people continually suffer and die around her wherever she goes with him, but frequently it happens because of her (see: her entire family at the end of S3). That's why I didn't find her gutwrenching sobs at Peck's death particularly OTT; it's not just that someone she knew died, but that he died to save her, in a way that I imagined twinged all her guilt buttons over The Year That Never Was and all the other people who suffered because of her and the Doctor's presence throughout S3 (Joan Redfern, her maid friend who was taken over by the Family of Blood, 10% of the earth's population [though they got better], and really everyone affected by Saxon!Master, including the Toclafane).
Also, how cute was it when the Hath were petting Martha's head? SUPERCUTE, Y/Y
In continuing arcs, we get to see more about the Doctor's rather complex relationship with the military and with guns. Now, I really do wish they could write him vaguely consistently in this respect - if it truly is a response to the Time War, it's awfully delayed (given that Nine clearly didn't like guns or the military but was willing to use them/condone them), and I refuse to believe that it's entirely brought on by the death of
Really, so much of this episode seems to be dealing with the fallout of the Time War and of Gallifrey that it's no surprise that the background to that clip is a new rendition of "This is Gallifrey: Our Childhood, Our Home"; it's only a surprise that we don't get more of that song as background music throughout. The Doctor talks more in detail about his original family (who he seems to believe are ALL dead, which admittedly is not new but makes it even more likely that Susan is no longer in the picture). He also seems to have put the Time Lords in general on a pedestal, which is understandable but a little puzzling; after all, while speaking ill of the dead is rather gauche, they DID frequently treat him like utter crap. I can see being sad about people like Susan and Romana and Leela, but it seems that the Doctor has willfully forgotten stuff like the Time Lords wiping Jamie and Zoe's memories, or forcing him to regenerate into Three, or the crap they attempted to pull on him in every single Old!Who Gallifrey story EVAR.
As for the story itself...overall I thought it was good, and I liked the seven-day war twist. I thought it was really good until Jenny was shot, which made me roll my eyes at YET ANOTHER EXCUSE TO GIVE TEN EMO. Also both
jokersama and I kept ranting SHE HAS TWO OF 'EM to each other over AIM, and were quite prepared to write off the ep as good but with a crap ending until the REAL ending, when Jenny...doesn't precisely regenerate, but comes back to life. While some folks have argued she was restored to life by the terraforming energy, a la Spock and the Genesis Project from the Star Trek movies, it seemed to me to resemble much more the energy issuing from Ten's mouth in "The Christmas Invasion." So I personally handwave it as another manifestation of the whole "for fifteen hours post-regeneration, things can regrow/change/whatever"...if it applies to regeneration, maybe it applies to generation as well, and the fact that they went to pains to reintroduce the hand Ten regrew then at the opening of the episode perhaps lends itself to that interpretation. But the important thing is that Jenny's still around (though of course the Doctor doesn't know that...yet), and seems quite set to follow her dad's example.In more ways that one: after all, stealing a ship to travel the universe in, HAY THAT SOUNDS FAMILIAR
Here's hoping she shows up in the specials and/or S5 and/or The Sarah Jane Adventures. I'd like to see her as a companion, as I liked the character and Moffett's portrayal, and I think it could be interesting to see the Doctor kind of trying to teach someone to be a Time Lord (or Lady, in Jenny's case)...especially since the Doctor was so rubbish at it, as Romana regularly made clear. XD
Some general likes/dislikes about the episode:
- Donna's encouragement of the Doctor's relationship with Jenny, and convincing him to accept her, was great. Her "I think you're wrong" was one of the best moments ever for the personal development of the Doctor, I think. And Donna threatening to use her "womanly wiles" was hilarious (especially given what we saw of said wiles in "The Runaway Bride," lol).
- Another great moment: "He saves planets. Rescues civilizations. Defeats terrible creatures. And runs a lot. Seriously, there's an outrageous amount of running involved." And the reiteration of that at the end with Jenny in the shuttle lent what was a hilarious throwaway line a kind of quiet dignity; the way that so often works in Doctor Who is one of the things I like best about the show.
- However, they're getting kind of anvilicious with the whole "something bad is going to happen to Donna" stuff. This week's hint: Donna saying she plans to travel with the Doctor "forever." HOW OMINOUS, and given that the last person to say that ended up crying on an alternate world Norwegian beach, it has rather the effect of a soldier in an army movie showing his fellows a picture of his sweetheart back home. :(
- I also liked the way the episode made it clear that Martha is completely over the Doctor and has moved on and found something on Earth that is just as important, or more, to her...which makes a nice contrast to Sarah Jane (who admittedly very much had her reasons for being the way we saw her in "School Reunion"). She may still enjoy parts of traveling with the Doctor, but she's seen too many awful things to really want to do it full-time again.
- The Doctor holding the gun on Jenny's assassin, but not shooting it, I liked and thought was in character. His insistence that somehow the fact that "he never would" is what they should found their civilization on, however, was WAY more problematic; especially given that while he "never would" NOW, he certainly would, and HAS, in the past (Gallifrey and Skaro didn't exactly destroy themselves with the power of hugs and puppies, not to mention his genocides of the Racnoss and of the Vervoids and [admittedly only mostly successful] of the Daleks and...).
- Is it just me, or is Jenny's creation a nod to the whole "loom" concept in the books? It would seem to argue against it, though, as the Doctor treats this method of conception as rather strongly abnormal. XD
- Of course, Jenny's death was quite reminiscent of that of the Master...once again, the only fellow Gallifreyan in existence, dying in his arms of a gunshot wound. (She was rather less psychotically evil, though. XD) This is perhaps another good reason why the Doctor felt a need to leave early, before Jenny woke up, and why Martha let him.
...And next week, we get Agatha Christie and a giant wasp! :D
Also, I've been reading more Phil Rickman (
enkiae would approve)...for those who don't remember, this is the mystery series I recommended a while back featuring an Anglican exorcist named Merrily Watkins. I picked up the first two books (The Wine of Angels and Midwinter of the Spirit), as all I'd read were a couple of later books, and I've really enjoyed both. I'm sending a care package of books to my mom tomorrow (as she had to have foot surgery a couple of weeks back, and is basically stuck on bed rest for the next four weeks and needs something to read so that she doesn't go too stir-crazy), and since I'd raved about them to her she asked me to send them along. :D