Doctor Who 2005

Aug 15, 2005 05:56

I've finished watching Doctor Who (2005) for the second time now (downloads, and then ABC TV), and I've got to admit I'm still as much in the dark about what the Time War was as I was the first time. I know it doesn't fit with book/audio canon (from what other people have said; I only read the NAs and the very earliest BBC books), so presumably we're meant to extrapolate from what we are shown on screen.

We know the Daleks were involved, and we know that the Doctor 'knows' that there are no other Time Lords left - he'd feel them. Also from Dalek we can reason that the Doctor pressed the button (so to speak) that sent them all into oblivion. It's implied that Daleks were obliterated from the timeline, but here we're given two contradictory remarks: one from Jack, that all the Daleks were destroyed (Ep 12: "It's impossible. I know those ships. They were destroyed") and one that they were just legends (Ep 13: Rodrick: "You don't exist). Although having just replayed his scenes, he also says that they "disappeared thousands of years ago"1

But back to what I was saying, I would have thought that the whole point of a Time War is to erase something from Time and Space, so why can people remember the Daleks? Especially given that both Time Lords and Daleks have time travel, which makes just wiping them out at one linear time a bit pointless. Also if that'd happened the Doctor would still be able to run into other Time Lords at some point in their own timelines where they aren't dead yet. I suppose I could fanwank it by saying that the timewipe was incomplete, so, although if you actually visited the times and places the Daleks (and Gallifreyans) interfered you wouldn't meet them, but if you visited a hundred or a thousand years after, you'd hear stories and legends about what they'd done. Does anyone have any better ideas?

The Doctor is hugely affected by the Time War; you really cannot discuss Doc Nine without mentioning it. In Dalek when he holds the gun to shoot Rusty the Dalek (er, why's he called 'Rusty', btw?) the loss of control is remarkable. He's always been prepared to kill Daleks, but I don't think we've ever seen him hate one quite this much.2 Of course we get the payoff for this when we see him prepared to kill billions of humans to destroy the Dalek fleet. With the final moment (for him on the Time War arc) of him saying "Coward. Any day." That's a huge emotional moment and probably the moment that defines the Doctor. Although it makes it even harder to guess what happened in the Time War. How could the Doctor have done something that destroyed his own people? Or did they order him to?

And just how damaged is the Doctor? Enough to fall in love with a human? I've always thought he couldn't do it. Not because of Looms and things, but because we're just not quite, well it'd be like us shagging a chimp (perhaps at a pinch the missing link), just too big a gap.3 He's very fixated on Rose, and thrilled when TARDIS ex machina Rose says she can see everything, as though he's been searching for an equal in her, someone to replace his own people, far more than with any of his previous companions. He's such a lonely man; he needs her.4 Of course he does, but we're shown there so very clearly the difference between them. At that moment, when her head hurts, she's so very human. Actually, if anything, I think that when he draws the vortex out of her he's accepting her as she is, and not as someone to have a romantic relationship with. That kiss is more of an ending than a beginning. He's accepting Rose as she is, not as he wants her to be (and that wanting her to be more than she is would account for so much of the jealousy in earlier episodes and the fury when she's "just another stupid ape" in Father's Day), and that negates the romance, but makes the companionship so much healthier.

There are so many other things I'd like to discuss... Was Boom Town pro or anti capital punishment? The dragons in Father's Day. When's Jack coming back, dammit?! But I suspect this is quite long enough already, so, aside from the footnotes that sort of appeared, that's all folks. Although if anyone has links to interesting discussions, I'd be, er, interested.

1 And I can't let that scene go by without mad fangirl love for Captain Jack: "If you hear us dying, then tell me that the Daleks aren't real."

2 That was the point I decided I definitely liked CE. I was a bit ambivalent early on. Possibly still bitter about the Doc of my childhood (Seven) being cancelled and then cast off in a lousy movie. Eric Roberts as the Master. Pah.

3 I know Andred married Leela, but he was an ordinary Gallifreyan, not a Time Lord, I suppose. Also that was just weird, since they barely even talked to each other - and the original series had a fixation on marrying off female companions, anyway. Er [/defensive] *cough* Did any other Gallifreyans/Time Lords marry humans? And don't mention the movie! ;) Although, talking of the half-human thing, did anyone think Rose's 'Ewww, half-human' about the Daleks was a dig at the movie?

4 I should not be thinking Michael Jackson/Bubbles the Chimp now, should I?

doctor who, commentary

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