strange and random happenstance: Timelords

The Doctor is dead, long live The Doctor. Regeneration is one of those givens in Doctor Who... it doesn't mean I have to like it. The end of the 10th Doctor has been immanent for some time, and in the intervening months I have had much denial followed by anger (last week)... but I think I've reached acceptance, of a kind. The episode, while overall not the best, did have it's moments where David shined and made me repeat his utterance "I don't want to go." I don't want a new journey, I don't want to go to a new Doctor, I want him to stay. I'm going to sound old, but this young guy looks too flash, too, not David Tennant. Oh no... it's not the denial coming back again is it? Because me and denial, we're good friends... for example in my world, Jonathan didn't die on Buffy, neither did Anya, Zander is a pirate though, which seems kind of impossible without the others, and Wes and Fred are happy as can be over on Angel... and how may years has that been? Six, seven... see, me, denial, friends! Especially when it comes to Joss Whedon shows, and Russell T. Davies is kind of the British Joss. Also Wash didn't die in my world, come join me!

But I think I'll let the 10th Doctor have his death. It was a good death, it was a noble death, not some lame ass spider bite, it was a death. I think that's what hits home more then the other regenerations, and it's what Russell T. Davies tried, and I think accomplished, doing, he gave the Doctor a death. Before it was always more a moving on not a full stop. The man goes on with just a different face, but it's not that... it's more. It's the death of a man the world loved and this new guy, we're not sold on. When Christopher Eccleston died, it was a kind of transcendence and a glory, here we are left with sadness.

Coming up in the next paragraph, as River Song would say: "Spoilers!"

We begin were we left off, the "Master Race" has taken over the world and there are no more humans. After some more Master ranting The Doctor, Wilf and the two cacti retreat to outer space to regroup. All this is inter cut with more Star Wars prequel Timelord delusions of Russell T. Davies which are saved from being pure tack by Timothy Dalton being awesome. He was made to play villians, he never worked as Bond because bad is in his bones... Hot Fuzz anyone? So the Timelords have gone major bongo crazy and have actually created the drumming in The Master's head so as to escape the timelock that was created for the Time War. What's even more crazy is that they don't seem to care that they would bring about the end of time, quite literally, when Pandora's box is reopened in the form of this timelock, because they all believe in the Rapture and ascending to another plane. To put it simply... The Master even thinks they're a little not all there. Of course things work out as they should, but not without some more Star Wars references thrown in. Gallifrey falls again and The Master Peter Petrelli's his way out, which made me think that he was going to go nuclear and The Doctor would die of radiation... I was right on the radiation, wrong on the why.

The prophecy of doom, the knocking of four, turns out to be Wilf, trapped in the radiation chamber... he's the Doctor's doom. A person he loves and would willingly die for, is his death, not the Timelords, not The Master. He could live if he wanted, he could let Wilf die, but that's not The Doctor we know and love. The soliloquy of David's is heartrending. You know he'll save Wilf, it's what The Doctor does... but for once he breaks down, rages against the world, how he, someone who is a Lord of Time could die to save a no one. But it's those who deserve saving all the more. And Wilf knows what's coming, he begs The Doctor to let him die, he knows how important the Doctor is to the world.

What Russell T. Davies leaves us with is just designed to tie up loose ends while pulling at the heart strings. Because we're having a changing of the guard at Doctor Who, Russell and Julie are leaving with David, and hence all those companions are too. It's, presumably, the end of Wilf and Mickey and Donna and Martha... we'll see Sarah Jane and Jack, but what about Jackie and finally, what about Rose. I'm beyond pissed that apparently Mickey is with Martha... icky icky, I hate Mickey and Martha deserves better. Donna, while getting what she wanted pre-Doctor, still is so unrealized as a human and looses out the most. Jack... I should have seen that Jack would be in some Star Wars dive bar and then run into Alonso, aka Russell Tovey, and that, they would say, seems the beginning of the next season of Torchwood... Jack has his new Ianto. Allons-y Alonso! And Rose... it's a farewell without her ever knowing, and that's what makes it all the more powerful. Russell didn't reunite them to fight a common enemy, he didn't have them all flying the TARDIS and banishing the foe, he had The Doctor, alone, watching over his friends, some of them without them ever knowing, as his final goodbye. It was the quiet that was needed and lacking in the first part. I will miss the 10th Doctor, but hopefully the 11th Doctor won't be all bad, he just won't, and can't be David.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 PM 3 comments

Labels: Angel, Buffy, Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Doctor Who, Donna, Gallifrey, Joss Whedon, Russell T. Davies, The 10th Doctor, The 11th Doctor, Time War, Timelords, Torchwood, Wilf

You'd think that Russell T. Davies would really have tried to write the best possible ending for David Tennant... well, you'd think that... but if part one is anything to go by, I'm not sure that he can pull it all together. For those who watched it last night, or for those who will be watching it shortly stateside (it airs tonight), I will be very interested to see what you think. I was thoroughly unimpressed. There were moments when it was perfect, but these were fleeting and we were left with something that was just too much.

Coming up in the next paragraph, as River Song would say: "Spoilers!"

As the narrator's voice comes up, we learn that it is the last days of the human race... but The Doctor is not there, he has been delaying meeting the Ood and by the time he arrives, it might be too late, the nightmares that people can't remember are of The Master, he is returning. But Donna's grandfather, Wilf, is on Earth and he remembers that which others cannot, he is also seeing visiosn of a lady telling him what is to come. Wilf sends out a reconnaissance mission of randy geriatrics and they discover The Doctor moments after he lands and has had his first encounter with The Master. The Doctor unburdens himself to Wilf as Wilf begs to get Donna back to what she was... but that's not possible, she'll have to make due with her new fiance and just getting by. The Doctor and The Master have yet another showdown and then mysterious forces, controlled by an eccentric daughter dotting billionaire, capture The Master and all hell breaks loose due to the technology that the billionaire, Joshua Naismith, scavenged from the ruins of Torchwood. As part one reaches it's climax, as one viewer commented, was the whole episode just written for the one groan inducing joke about the "Master Race?"

This episode just had too much of Russell T. Davies trying to be the biggest and best sci-fi show there is. And you know what? Taking bites and pieces from every other show and badly integrating it into your own do not a successful hour of television make. I have several big gripes, the main one being, Russell apparently thinks Doctor Who is now Heroes. First off, Heroes had maybe one good season and is facing cancellation on a daily basis, so why'd he think it was a good idea to emulate it? The narration is a little nod, but when did The Master go all mutant x on us? The episode is more like some really lame origins comic for how The Master was reborn and developed superhuman powers... even if he wasn't really human to begin with. He can now FLY! And shoot lightning out of his hands! How Awesome... wait... I mean LAME! I love that they obviously didn't reign John Simm in at all, he's brilliantly over the top and ravenous to boot, plus the blonde hair, loving it! But his performance is what makes The Master work, not the special effects and flying and lasers, it's his terrifying screams of "Dinner Time" and his lament about the sound of drums and his interaction with David Tennant that ground this high flying baddie.

Then I have guest star gripes... mainly due to the fact that they hired some of my most hated British character actors ever. Joshua Naismith is none other than David Harewood, Friar Tuck from season three of Robin Hood, otherwise known to me as the reason Robin Hood was shuffled into a quick cancellation grave due to his overacting and overbearing attitude to all of Robin Hood's men. Superiority complex much? Plus, he's more than just a little creepy with his daughter, who can't act at all, don't believe, watch the Confidential. But more importantly, Addams, played by Sinead Keenan. Sinead is most known for being George's girlfriend, and also a doctor, on Being Human. There's something about her that I just hate. I have a nickname, it's Piggy. Yes it might be mean, but she can't act and the only hope I have for season two of Being Human is that she dies during the transformation the first time she wolfs out. Her appearance on Doctor Who was not a welcome surprise.

But what got me most of all is that this was so timely. It was of our time! Doctor Who usually strives for ambiguity and has their own heads of state or vague references to presidents and leaders elect. But not this time. It was Barack Obama this and Barack Obama that. It not only took you out of the world of Doctor Who, but it also lacked credulity. When was the last time a President did a big speech about how they're magically going to fix the economy on Christmas? As Russell said, they took a risk with this and they hoped that the recession would still be around. Personally I think you took a risk of destroying the fabric of the show. Where Torchwood could conceivably do this better than Doctor Who, they didn't throw out political names left and right when the children of the earth were at stack, so why did Davies do it now?

Overall this episode displays one thing... it's good we're getting ride of Russell T. Davies. He has a love of bringing villains back again and again, and a tendency to make "specials" bloated and unwieldy, and in the long run, boring. Though I will say this, he has surrounded himself with the talent that tried to make the best of a bad script, and occasionally they succeeded. John Simm gave some of his best as a hungry hoodie in the wasteland and the scene where David Tennant told Wilf he was going to die, I don't think David had to act those tears, it is heart wrenching. So for a few scenes it was worth it, but as to the finale... I hope Russell delivers, I really hope that this underwhelming first chapter was a way to lower our expectations in order to then blow us away... but I have a feeling it wasn't. Also on a final note... true Doctor Who fans know that the Timelords and The Doctor have never seen eye to eye and that they're kind of bureaucratic baddies, we did not need to be told this Russell, plus, when the scene ends up looking eerily similar to the galactic senate scenes in the Star Wars prequels, you better hope you didn't jump the shark like Lucas did.