The Best-Laid Plans (2/6) Post-JE, Doctor, Dup. Doctor, Donna, Rose Rating - PG

[catsfiction]

WORDS: 4100

PICTURE: satanjewels

A sequel to The Best of Times, starting precisely where that story stopped

Comments

[catsfiction]

I think you've nailed what I love about the Doctor and his universe. 400 years ago, Shakespeare was pop culture. (That came out wonderfully in TSC). And the Doctor wouldn't have the boundaries we have. He wouldn't stop seeing someone's output as pop culture because they were alive in 1600, not 2000 and now people are doing him at school. He wouldn't see The Smiths as not being classic, just because we haven't got to the stage of doing them in school yet. Because he time travels! It's wonderfully liberating. I once explored that in a story about poetry: "Deconstructing Daffodils" (it's in the Doctor's Diary if you're interested). And this, to me, is pure Doctor:

Okay, so you want me to explain poetry.

Well, you can’t explain poetry. If you could, it wouldn’t be poetry. As Alexander Pope said, “Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?” That’s poetry. It’s when people push language a bit harder than it’s been pushed before, when it’s used in an interesting new way, a way that makes you think, “Yes, that’s it. That’s just how I feel.”

It’s Elvis saying “Since my baby left me, I’ve got a new place to dwell, it’s down at the end of lonely street at heartbreak hotel.” It’s Cole Porter saying, “You’re the National Gallery, you’re Garbo’s salary, you’re Cellophane.” It’s Andrew Lloyd Webber saying, “I have measured out my life in coffee spoons.” Oh, hang on, that’s T.S. Eliot.