HUGE long Doctor Who rant, in which I use "fantastic" more times than I ought
You know, it's always difficult for me to sit down and say, "Now, I'm going to watch Doctor Who!" I'll always go with Bones first, or The Office, or something similar. I think part of this is that Doctor Who is always a little painful to watch, and I'm not sure why; perhaps it's merely because I want to do what he does so very much. But whenever I do convince myself to watch it, I'm always extremely happy that I've done so.
First off: this season was beautifully engineered, from the inclusion of the Face of Boe back in Gridlock to the explanation in Last of the Time Lords (OHMYGODJACKITSJACKHOWCOOLISTHAT? Ahem. I'm ok now) (which gives a fantastic sort of paradox in which Jack, who experiences the Doctor not being alone, must tell him before it happens. Fantastic. And Jack, as a former Time Agent, is of course perfectly suited to the role that he's been given), and the whole establishing of the power of words in The Shakespeare Code. Also the watch thing, which doesn't require quite so much planning but is nice all the same. Beautifully done, guys, and I salute you - this is a huge part of the reason I love JK Rowling, her ability to weave details together to form an overarching story that makes no sense until the end, and it also means that I will always love the plot-arcs in Doctor Who far more than the mytharc of X-Files (which gave me no satisfaction whatsoever. What the hell, guys? You build it up for 9 years, and there's no sense-making conclusion? If Lost does that, I will be similarly upset).
But I do have one problem: Martha says something about the Face of Boe in Utopia, and Jack is standing right over her shoulder. Given his later revelation, how does he NOT go, "Wait, what the hell?" He certainly was proud of it - doesn't seem like he'd forget!
And now, I HAVE to talk about Jack, because I absolutely love him. So weird, how I completely resisted him back in the first season, and now I'm heartbroken that he's leaving again. They should totally bring him back in the future, for the occasional episode - they've established that basically he lives beyond reckoning, so they can legitimately include him in nearly any conceivable future episode. I don't think they will; I think bringing him back once is about all that's allowed (Sarah Jane, anyone?) - but then, when has Jack ever followed the rules? But besides all that, he has definitely become one of my favorite characters. He flirts with everyone, is completely NOT a monogamous kind of guy, but is still hung up on the Doctor (the "never was") - I loved that line to Martha, about "you, too", because for all it's been over 100 years since Jack last saw the Doctor, he still loves him. And hates him, a little bit, but that's vanished now, with understanding and forgiveness. He's a great character, and hopefully he won't be quite so angsty next season of Torchwood - hasn't the end-of-the-universe thing made him more hopeful? But I'm going to miss him, because he's very different from one show to the next, and I love Doctor Who!Jack best.
(And it's funny - sometimes I think John Barrowman is absolutely gorgeous, and sometimes his face doesn't quite make sense to me. He definitely looks best when he's kind of beat up and his hair is ruffled - Last of the Time Lords works for this, as does the beginning of Utopia when he's just come back to life. But that scene where he's clinging to the side of the TARDIS and yelling? Really weird-looking. I don't know. He has got a fantastic body, though. And those scenes, with Jack and the Doctor walking next to each other, with the long flapping coats and dramatic strides? Way to make me flail, guys, really. God, I need a trenchcoat.)
The funniest thing about Jack still being hung up on the Doctor (and Martha, and Rose), is that they all despair because he doesn't love them, but there's really nothing anyone can do about it. He does love them, he just isn't in love with them. He can't be. There's no limit to how much love he can feel, so he loves each of his Companions and he loves the whole human race and he loves the whole universe - he even loves the Master. But he can't be IN LOVE because that implies singular devotion to one person, and he can't do that. He's not allowed to - there's so much out there, so much universe, and he's the last of the Time Lords, and he has to watch out for all of it. It's in his genes, in his training. So they all think it is, perhaps, something that's their fault, something they aren't doing - Martha thinks it's because she's not as good as Rose, but he wasn't in love with Rose, either. The reason he was so stuck on her was because he wasn't done with her, and she wasn't done with him: when he lost her, he truly LOST her, was torn from her, with no hope of even visiting. He'll miss Martha, for sure, but she left of her own free will and they both have to be satisfied with that. And he can always go back and see her, remember that time they saved the world from the Doctor's best friend and worst enemy, visit their dear friend Jack at Torchwood. This is a good ending; the ending with Rose was a bad one, and that's why the Doctor was always stuck on her, could never get over her. Why Martha always thought she was second-best.
I still don't like Martha quite as much as I liked Rose; there's something about her that grates on me. But I loved who she became in Last of the Time Lords, her quest - she really grew up, she toughened, she fought, and it was fantastic. But I was also disappointed occasionally: first off, what's with ripping her away from cute guys who like her, writers? There was that kid in Daleks in Manhattan who clearly adored her, and then Dr. Thomas Milligan in Last of the Time Lords. I'm really hoping that when she goes back to work at the hospital/school, she'll look him up. She ought to have a guy who actually NOTICES her, now. And he was a good man, a brave (if stupid) man, determined and strong (and very cute), and he died in that year-that-never-happened, so there's bound to be some kind of residual memory there, something that's not quite right, that he can never sort out and usually ignores. And so maybe he liked Martha because she was a legend, but she's still got that in her, even if he doesn't remember, and the fact that he wanted to see her so much that he could overcome the cloaking device will always put him at least a step ahead of the Doctor in certain respects.
I like comparing Martha's family to Rose's. Both of them get inevitably wound up in the Doctor's affairs because of their daughters, but there are striking differences, even beyond personality. Jackie knows exactly who and what the Doctor is, and she's just afraid of losing Rose; the Joneses have no idea what's going on with Martha. And ultimately, Rose didn't care what Jackie or Mickey thought of her voyaging; her life with the Doctor was everything to her, and she loved them, but she needed the Doctor more. Martha is more under the influence of her family; she's got more of a family, first of all, and she loves them, and she cares about their opinions. She has goals and grounding; Rose was lost, and didn't know it. Rose needed the Doctor, was truly a "stray dog", where Martha loved the Doctor and wanted to go with him. It was good for her, to be sure, but it wasn't everything.
You know what else is interesting? The difference between the Doctor's Companions and the Master's (who, by the way, is named Lucy, amongst mentions of "diamonds in the sky" - gratuitous Beatles references, anyone? :P ). The first thing the Doctor took Rose to see was the end of her world, just as the Master took Lucy to the end of the universe, but Rose didn't break. And Jack, at the end of the universe, sees humanity struggling to survive and, rather than giving up, no longer wants to die. I'm not sure if the Doctor simply chooses Companions with stronger personalities, and that's what saves them from all the destruction they see, or if it's the Doctor himself who saves them. Or if it's a combination. Clearly, the Master wanted Lucy to break under seeing the end of the universe (God, I keep thinking of Hitchhiker's Guide), so he probably said little things that would guide her that way, but he also probably chose her specifically because he thought she'd break in the right way. And the way these two men treat their companions differs radically: the Doctor loves his, treats them with respect, even if it is sometimes tempered with neglect and absentmindedness; but the Master, he marries his, kisses her on national television, but leaves her wearing completely incongruous dresses and fancy hair (which she looks horribly uncomfortable and awkward in) and gives her nothing to do. The Doctor can trust his Companions with the fate of humanity, of the universe; the Master treats his as a trophy wife. That final scene where Lucy kills him was striking: she's dressed for the red carpet in the Ministry of Defense, and her equivalent is a warrior, laughing in the face of death because she knows how strong she is, how strong humanity is. It's fantastic.
I am also ridiculously amused by the relationship between the Doctor and the Master. Heartbroken, of course, because David Tennant was stunning in that performance, but also incredibly amused, because I was reading all about Doctor/Master slash before seeing this episode and didn't understand. Then I saw this and it ALL made sense. Wow. He loves him, as an individual and as the last of his race. The Doctor doesn't want to be alone, and even if the only other is a madman intent on destruction and domination, he doesn't care. They were friends, once upon a time, best friends, and now one has to defeat the other but can't bring himself to kill him. (Dumbledore/Grindelwald parallels apparent to anyone else?)
I love their names, though. The Doctor, who makes things better, who runs around the universe picking up people like "stray dogs", making them stronger even as he breaks their hearts, who always finds himself in the midst of tragedy and is compelled to fix it. And the Master, who is called to war by the drumming in his head, who needs to dominate everything, needs to have (and prove) control. I wonder if there were Time Lords called things like the Guardian and the Traveler and the Lawyer (couldn't resist, sorry). I love this system of choosing names for yourself that reflect who you are and what you do - really reinforces the idea of the strength of ideas and words and names.
And just a few last fun things: they got the proper meaning of "decimate"! No one remembers that it really means "to remove one-tenth", not "to reduce to infinitesimal amounts"! (This word comes from the Roman army, where if a legion lost a decisive battle, they'd kill every tenth soldier. Most words with a dec- prefix refer to the Latin "ten", including December.) Also, the use of "Voodoo Child"? Cracked me up. Since I was watching it on YouTube, when the "Here come the drums" part started going, I was convinced that someone was messing with me and had heard the line, remembered the song, and put it in. Ahaha. No, it was actually IN the episode. As were the Scissor Sisters. I love the idea of the Master running around blaring music all the time, trying to drown out the drumming in his head.
If you read all of that, I am HIGHLY impressed. Most of you won't; most of you don't watch Doctor Who. You should - it's fantastic. One of the best-written and best-organized shows on television, well-acted, heartbreaking and inspiring, with some of the most awful special effects I've seen in modern times. Worse than the CGI polar bears in The Golden Compass. But the thing is, you don't really care that you can see the person wearing the alien suit - it's not important. It's delightfully campy, but it's so important that you don't walk away thinking it was campy. God, I love this show.
First off: this season was beautifully engineered, from the inclusion of the Face of Boe back in Gridlock to the explanation in Last of the Time Lords (OHMYGODJACKITSJACKHOWCOOLISTHAT? Ahem. I'm ok now) (which gives a fantastic sort of paradox in which Jack, who experiences the Doctor not being alone, must tell him before it happens. Fantastic. And Jack, as a former Time Agent, is of course perfectly suited to the role that he's been given), and the whole establishing of the power of words in The Shakespeare Code. Also the watch thing, which doesn't require quite so much planning but is nice all the same. Beautifully done, guys, and I salute you - this is a huge part of the reason I love JK Rowling, her ability to weave details together to form an overarching story that makes no sense until the end, and it also means that I will always love the plot-arcs in Doctor Who far more than the mytharc of X-Files (which gave me no satisfaction whatsoever. What the hell, guys? You build it up for 9 years, and there's no sense-making conclusion? If Lost does that, I will be similarly upset).
But I do have one problem: Martha says something about the Face of Boe in Utopia, and Jack is standing right over her shoulder. Given his later revelation, how does he NOT go, "Wait, what the hell?" He certainly was proud of it - doesn't seem like he'd forget!
And now, I HAVE to talk about Jack, because I absolutely love him. So weird, how I completely resisted him back in the first season, and now I'm heartbroken that he's leaving again. They should totally bring him back in the future, for the occasional episode - they've established that basically he lives beyond reckoning, so they can legitimately include him in nearly any conceivable future episode. I don't think they will; I think bringing him back once is about all that's allowed (Sarah Jane, anyone?) - but then, when has Jack ever followed the rules? But besides all that, he has definitely become one of my favorite characters. He flirts with everyone, is completely NOT a monogamous kind of guy, but is still hung up on the Doctor (the "never was") - I loved that line to Martha, about "you, too", because for all it's been over 100 years since Jack last saw the Doctor, he still loves him. And hates him, a little bit, but that's vanished now, with understanding and forgiveness. He's a great character, and hopefully he won't be quite so angsty next season of Torchwood - hasn't the end-of-the-universe thing made him more hopeful? But I'm going to miss him, because he's very different from one show to the next, and I love Doctor Who!Jack best.
(And it's funny - sometimes I think John Barrowman is absolutely gorgeous, and sometimes his face doesn't quite make sense to me. He definitely looks best when he's kind of beat up and his hair is ruffled - Last of the Time Lords works for this, as does the beginning of Utopia when he's just come back to life. But that scene where he's clinging to the side of the TARDIS and yelling? Really weird-looking. I don't know. He has got a fantastic body, though. And those scenes, with Jack and the Doctor walking next to each other, with the long flapping coats and dramatic strides? Way to make me flail, guys, really. God, I need a trenchcoat.)
The funniest thing about Jack still being hung up on the Doctor (and Martha, and Rose), is that they all despair because he doesn't love them, but there's really nothing anyone can do about it. He does love them, he just isn't in love with them. He can't be. There's no limit to how much love he can feel, so he loves each of his Companions and he loves the whole human race and he loves the whole universe - he even loves the Master. But he can't be IN LOVE because that implies singular devotion to one person, and he can't do that. He's not allowed to - there's so much out there, so much universe, and he's the last of the Time Lords, and he has to watch out for all of it. It's in his genes, in his training. So they all think it is, perhaps, something that's their fault, something they aren't doing - Martha thinks it's because she's not as good as Rose, but he wasn't in love with Rose, either. The reason he was so stuck on her was because he wasn't done with her, and she wasn't done with him: when he lost her, he truly LOST her, was torn from her, with no hope of even visiting. He'll miss Martha, for sure, but she left of her own free will and they both have to be satisfied with that. And he can always go back and see her, remember that time they saved the world from the Doctor's best friend and worst enemy, visit their dear friend Jack at Torchwood. This is a good ending; the ending with Rose was a bad one, and that's why the Doctor was always stuck on her, could never get over her. Why Martha always thought she was second-best.
I still don't like Martha quite as much as I liked Rose; there's something about her that grates on me. But I loved who she became in Last of the Time Lords, her quest - she really grew up, she toughened, she fought, and it was fantastic. But I was also disappointed occasionally: first off, what's with ripping her away from cute guys who like her, writers? There was that kid in Daleks in Manhattan who clearly adored her, and then Dr. Thomas Milligan in Last of the Time Lords. I'm really hoping that when she goes back to work at the hospital/school, she'll look him up. She ought to have a guy who actually NOTICES her, now. And he was a good man, a brave (if stupid) man, determined and strong (and very cute), and he died in that year-that-never-happened, so there's bound to be some kind of residual memory there, something that's not quite right, that he can never sort out and usually ignores. And so maybe he liked Martha because she was a legend, but she's still got that in her, even if he doesn't remember, and the fact that he wanted to see her so much that he could overcome the cloaking device will always put him at least a step ahead of the Doctor in certain respects.
I like comparing Martha's family to Rose's. Both of them get inevitably wound up in the Doctor's affairs because of their daughters, but there are striking differences, even beyond personality. Jackie knows exactly who and what the Doctor is, and she's just afraid of losing Rose; the Joneses have no idea what's going on with Martha. And ultimately, Rose didn't care what Jackie or Mickey thought of her voyaging; her life with the Doctor was everything to her, and she loved them, but she needed the Doctor more. Martha is more under the influence of her family; she's got more of a family, first of all, and she loves them, and she cares about their opinions. She has goals and grounding; Rose was lost, and didn't know it. Rose needed the Doctor, was truly a "stray dog", where Martha loved the Doctor and wanted to go with him. It was good for her, to be sure, but it wasn't everything.
You know what else is interesting? The difference between the Doctor's Companions and the Master's (who, by the way, is named Lucy, amongst mentions of "diamonds in the sky" - gratuitous Beatles references, anyone? :P ). The first thing the Doctor took Rose to see was the end of her world, just as the Master took Lucy to the end of the universe, but Rose didn't break. And Jack, at the end of the universe, sees humanity struggling to survive and, rather than giving up, no longer wants to die. I'm not sure if the Doctor simply chooses Companions with stronger personalities, and that's what saves them from all the destruction they see, or if it's the Doctor himself who saves them. Or if it's a combination. Clearly, the Master wanted Lucy to break under seeing the end of the universe (God, I keep thinking of Hitchhiker's Guide), so he probably said little things that would guide her that way, but he also probably chose her specifically because he thought she'd break in the right way. And the way these two men treat their companions differs radically: the Doctor loves his, treats them with respect, even if it is sometimes tempered with neglect and absentmindedness; but the Master, he marries his, kisses her on national television, but leaves her wearing completely incongruous dresses and fancy hair (which she looks horribly uncomfortable and awkward in) and gives her nothing to do. The Doctor can trust his Companions with the fate of humanity, of the universe; the Master treats his as a trophy wife. That final scene where Lucy kills him was striking: she's dressed for the red carpet in the Ministry of Defense, and her equivalent is a warrior, laughing in the face of death because she knows how strong she is, how strong humanity is. It's fantastic.
I am also ridiculously amused by the relationship between the Doctor and the Master. Heartbroken, of course, because David Tennant was stunning in that performance, but also incredibly amused, because I was reading all about Doctor/Master slash before seeing this episode and didn't understand. Then I saw this and it ALL made sense. Wow. He loves him, as an individual and as the last of his race. The Doctor doesn't want to be alone, and even if the only other is a madman intent on destruction and domination, he doesn't care. They were friends, once upon a time, best friends, and now one has to defeat the other but can't bring himself to kill him. (Dumbledore/Grindelwald parallels apparent to anyone else?)
I love their names, though. The Doctor, who makes things better, who runs around the universe picking up people like "stray dogs", making them stronger even as he breaks their hearts, who always finds himself in the midst of tragedy and is compelled to fix it. And the Master, who is called to war by the drumming in his head, who needs to dominate everything, needs to have (and prove) control. I wonder if there were Time Lords called things like the Guardian and the Traveler and the Lawyer (couldn't resist, sorry). I love this system of choosing names for yourself that reflect who you are and what you do - really reinforces the idea of the strength of ideas and words and names.
And just a few last fun things: they got the proper meaning of "decimate"! No one remembers that it really means "to remove one-tenth", not "to reduce to infinitesimal amounts"! (This word comes from the Roman army, where if a legion lost a decisive battle, they'd kill every tenth soldier. Most words with a dec- prefix refer to the Latin "ten", including December.) Also, the use of "Voodoo Child"? Cracked me up. Since I was watching it on YouTube, when the "Here come the drums" part started going, I was convinced that someone was messing with me and had heard the line, remembered the song, and put it in. Ahaha. No, it was actually IN the episode. As were the Scissor Sisters. I love the idea of the Master running around blaring music all the time, trying to drown out the drumming in his head.
If you read all of that, I am HIGHLY impressed. Most of you won't; most of you don't watch Doctor Who. You should - it's fantastic. One of the best-written and best-organized shows on television, well-acted, heartbreaking and inspiring, with some of the most awful special effects I've seen in modern times. Worse than the CGI polar bears in The Golden Compass. But the thing is, you don't really care that you can see the person wearing the alien suit - it's not important. It's delightfully campy, but it's so important that you don't walk away thinking it was campy. God, I love this show.