After the Storm (3/6), Post JE, Rating Gen: Donna, Wilf, Sylvia, Jack, Tenth Doctor, Martha

[catsfiction]

AUTHOR: 
sensiblecat

WORDS: 4885

SPOILERS: Up to the The Next Doctor.

CREDITS: picture by fizzling_wizbee

The idea of Donna leaving Sylvia a letter about her travels with the Doctor comes from the BBC DW novel "Beautiful Chaos" by Garry Russell. Italicised extracts are his work. I have taken a small liberty with chronology - in the book the letter doesn't

Comments

[bananasandroses]

After reading this chapter originally I was going to comment but decided to take time to think about it and consider my response, because I knew that my first instinct would be to go with the emotional reaction and I’d risk missing something I wanted to say. Now I’ve had a chance both to re-read the chapter, and think about what I wanted to say, I feel better placed to review it coherently.

This is an interesting chapter; everybody’s bitching at everybody else (some with more justification than others - Ten, yes; Martha, yes; Jack, not so sure. The Jack you’ve crafted here reminds me very much of the one we see in Torchwood) and tensions are very, very high.

I hope though that now they’ve everything (well, mostly everything) out in the open they’ll be able to focus on Donna, now, when she needs them most.

Can’t wait for more.

[catsfiction]

Oh they will (focus on Donna, that is). Jack's an interesting character because his morals seem to vary wildly between TW and DW, or even from episode to episode. He's portrayed as morally inconsistent, which isn't the same as being immoral. Yes, he's having a go at the Doctor for what he did to Donna, even though he's retconned people himself. People aren't always consistent, are they? I think Jack still gets angry with the Doctor for falling off the pedestal he sets him on. There's some residual bitterness there

[bananasandroses]

I’m conflicted about Jack, if I’m honest, mainly because I get the distinct impression that the man we see on Who is the man he’d like to believe he is, rather than the one (on Torchwood) he truly is. Does that make sense?

You’ve said that you think there’s a sense of bitterness where Jack’s concerned over people (okay, the Doctor) falling from pedestals; myself, I think it may be less that and more a residual sense of abandonment from the Game Station. That, plus being told you’re “wrong” by somebody I’m convinced Jack’s in love with, will have hurt - and Jack’s the sort of a man to bear a grudge.

As far as issues go, I’m not a particular fan of his character (and I know I tend to have a reasonably strong bias towards Ten, in any case): hence the careful reading so I am reasonably sure I’ve understood what you’re trying to say before I weigh in with my own tuppence-worth ;)

[catsfiction]

It's a complex dynamic. Sometimes Jack is the speaker on behalf of humanity, against the alien, but that's tricky, because you can hardly claim Jack is a representative of 21C humanity - not his fault, he's just out of his time

[bananasandroses]

I have real problems with him. I hated the way the last TW series and DW3 almost presented him as a suffering Christ figure. He got entombed, in LOTTL he was even crucified. That squicked me out.

I watch Torchwood on a much more superficial level than I watch Who, so that passed me by for the most part.

I wonder, though, in Last of the Time Lords, whether or not they were trying to pull off some kind of Trinity idea? It would work, easily enough: the Doctor is the Lonely God, then Jack as the suffering Christ figure you mention. That leaves the Holy Spirit, which could either be the Wolf or the Time Vortex itself.

Hmm, the more I think on it the more plausible that theory sounds.