Doctor Who 6x11
(ETA: I'm going to leave this post unLocked for a while. At least until the end of the current series.)
Okay, I finished rewatching (and taking two pages worth of notes on) the last episode of Doctor Who. Yes, I took notes on a television show. It's not as though it's new territory to me, since I would take notes on entertainment often in my high school English and History courses. Then again, I was getting graded and I'm not now ...
I read through most of the reviews on my FL and who_daily and I was really surprised at how DIFFERENTLY I interpreted this episode compared to, well, EVERYONE ELSE. When I reviewed the episode tonight, I kept in mind the comments I'd read and shook my head, wondering, "I just don't understand how they see it that way." So that's why I took notes, jotting down reasons and "evidence" for why I interpreted it how I did.
From almost the get-go, this episode was about THE DOCTOR. We had Doctor-lite (ish) last week, and, even though the companions were involved, the plot was Doctor-centric this week. Anyway! This is where I differ from the rest of fandom: I thought the entire hotel was the Doctor's room. It's called "The God Complex", for fuck's sake. A title that's even referenced within the episode and to the Doctor himself. Almost since the revival of the series, we've had this idea of "God" attached to the Doctor in some amount. Most heavy-handedly with RTD's "Lonely God" nonsense. I've said before the Doctor's had a Complex since 1963, but at least he had a higher power (the Time Lords) to be "afraid" of then. Following, in no structured or particularly coherent terms, are the reasons why I felt like it was the Doctor's prison from the beginning.
Usually, the Doctor is the one most excited when he and his companions unexpectedly end up in a seemingly mundane location. With the hotel, it's not just excitement, it's giddiness. As I think on it now, he might've been aware something more was going on with this location than it seemed in that moment. He's going on and on about what's brilliant about the construction and randomness of the "hotel from the 80s" in the middle of nowhere aspect. In a way that baffles even me as a person who's seen almost all of the show and heard tons of audios. It's as though this place is specifically geared to engage him, no one else. And there's not a hint of another person in the place until the Doctor rings the bell at the check in counter. Three people, one obviously not human, appear out of nowhere, panicked and terrified. Kinda strange, I thought, even the first go around. But this feeds the Doctor's curiosity - he wants to know who, what, when, where, how and why they got there. All have differing stories. One of them, however, shines brighter than the rest - Nurse/Doctor Rita.
This group of people is engineered to feed into his ego/interest. First, we have Rita, who is not just clever, but so clever it makes the Doctor tell Amy she's "fired". Notice he only directed the comment to AMY, not to Rory as well. Rita is level-headed, smart, logical, confident and in control of her emotions. She's willing to accept the Doctor and the others are in the same boat based on observations she's made of them personally. Later, when talking to her, she's not just clever but she has a rapport with him that makes him behave differently than he does with Amy or Rory. With Rita, he doesn't seem to be showing off and he relates to her on a more equal level. She even makes him laugh with her wit. Rita is the ideal companion. With the other two, he has conventional one-off companions. A human male, who's scared out of his wits and an alien who isn't as scared but will gladly surrender to the Doctor, Amy and Rory. Howie, the conspiracy theorist nerd and Gibbis, a Tivolian whose planet has been invaded so many times, they don't even try to fight back anymore. Both have followed Rita's lead, and they're more willing to look to the Doctor to save them. There's a fourth, Joe, whom they find already in the thrall of the mysterious monster. Still, that doesn't stop the Doctor from wanting to save him.
In the hotel and the people already there, this seems like a standard set up for a Doctor Who episode. But, like I said, things felt off/odd from the beginning. Another aspect I thought suggested the whole hotel was the Doctor's room was the fact he and he alone found the bodies of those who'd died. He was alone when he found Howie, when he found Joe, when he saw Rita stumbling through the corridors on the security cameras. Each time, it was another reminder he'd failed someone, reinforcing his will to protect and save those remaining. With Rita, it was interesting how she'd responded when he told her he would come for her. She didn't want him to, since he'd put himself in the way, as she'd already accepted her death because of her faith in God. She is not looking to him for protection. She even confronted him about his need to do so on the steps. "Why is it up to you to save us? That's quite a God Complex you've got there." His faith in his own abilities to stop these things drives him. Even if he can't save everyone, he does manage to stop whatever from going on to hurt others. After all of this time, he can still have that within himself.
I realize the Doctor did find a room that was meant for him. Judging by the sounds coming from the inside, it was likely the demise of the TARDIS he feared the most. Or maybe the end of the universe. A number of things could make the cloister bells to ring, but whenever they have in the past, he's managed to stop whatever it was that caused them to do so. The look on his face, the slight smile, when he said, "Of course it's you." He knows he doesn't have to be afraid of what's inside; he knows he can stop it, he's done it before. He put the sign on it, I think, to mark the room in case it showed up again. (However, in terms of the narrative, I'm sure it was there to suggest what I'm writing about - the entire hotel was his room, but more on this later.) Relatedly, some people said a woman's voice was coming from his room. Naturally, they all assumed it was River. But I didn't hear any voices when he'd opened the door. Just the ones before he did and it was male and female, neither of them any different than those heard with the other victims.
I'd like to put Rory in his own paragraph because I've read several complaints about a lack of continuity between this episode and the end of "The Girl Who Waited". It was another clue - for me - the hotel was the Doctor's room, when it tried to let Rory out because, as the Doctor explained, it had no interest in Rory. Rory wasn't superstitious or blindly faithful in anything, giving it nothing to feed on. After "The Girl Who Waited", the Doctor knew Rory did not believe in him anymore, not the way Amy still did. The fight they had in the TARDIS while older!Amy begged to be let inside, it was the end of the full trust Rory put into the Doctor. In fact, he was so over being with him, he spoke about his and Amy's travels with the Doctor in the past tense. Something the Doctor was disturbed by when he'd realized it. After Rory's tells the Doctor about Howie and how he'd overcome a stutter, Rory says something like, "We forget not all victories are about saving the universe." You see this glimpse of the Doctor and Matt Smith gives this very faint smile. Almost to say, "Of course Rory would pick up on something like that and realize the significance." Rory's always been in a different emotional and mental place than Amy and the commentary about Howie reminded the Doctor yet again. Rory's an adult. Amy is still very much little Amelia who will not stop believing in him.
What confirmed, for me, since no one else in fandom appeared to view the ep this way, the entire hotel was his room was the last ten minutes. When he figured out it wasn't fear but faith that the Minotaur fed upon. So, if the hotel was his room, then it was actually him the Minotaur would be the most drawn to. He's a Time Lord, his arrogance and his own self-belief is a 14 course meal. When Amy asked him, "What do Time Lords pray to?", my immediate response was, "They're arrogant enough ... themselves." The Doctors's reaction seemed as though he was thinking that but didn't want to say it, since I'm sure he knew his was the source of faith the Minotaur wanted, not Amy's. When he tells Amy to forget her faith in him and proceeds to talk about how he's unperfect, not a hero, how much he'd screwed people up and made mistakes in his life, it's interesting to note he wasn't seeing Amy as Amy, but Amy as AMELIA. If he was trying to break Amy's faith in him, wouldn't he have seen her as her? Amelia was his biggest mistake - his selfishness, his need to be worshipped and adored are what messed up Amelia's life and, ultimately, put Amy and Rory into these dangerous situations. He wasn't saying those things to just kill Amy's faith in him, but to destroy what faith he had in himself. It wasn't until he looked totally defeated the Minotaur finally collapsed and the program stopped running.
Also, I thought it was interesting that the Doctor, Amy, Rory, the Minotaur, the TARDIS, Gibbis and the "Do Not Disturb" sign were the only things left in the room. If there had been three actual dead bodies within the PROGRAM, wouldn't they have ended up there with them? It also was intriguing simply because Gibbis was still there. During the ep, I got this vibe that there was more to Gibbis. In the scene after they'd witnessed the Weeping Angels, and Amy's telling him the Doctor will figure it out and save them, the tone of voice he used was kinda creepy. "If the Weeping Angels weren't meant for you, your room must still be out there." They showed a shot of his face, with this strange, almost devious grin and a creepy twinkle in his eyes. He was even more cold as the Doctor tried to assure them he'd figure out what was going on and save them. "You keep saying that but you never do. And while we're waiting, people die and we'll be next."
When nothing came from of his character, I felt set up for something which never happened. I was convinced Gibbis was connected to what was going on. Even more so when the Doctor was talking to the Minotaur and it told him that it just wanted to the whole thing to stop. Well, there had to be more to it than a programming glitch. Again, why didn't the bodies of the other three appear when the program shut down? Or the bodies of everyone else who'd died there? Only Gibbis remained. Interestingly enough, the prison was in orbit of the planet he'd claimed was his own. And if Gibbis' faith was in a conquering force to come and "save" them, logically, he'd have been the first in the group to die. Almost as soon as he'd arrived, that would've been his default reaction and he'd have "praised him" long before Joe. On my second review, I thought it was odd they were showing him scavenging, alone, while the Doctor, Amy and Rory watched Rita die on the monitors. If the Minotaur were such a threat to him, you'd think someone that timid would've been with the Doctor or Amy or Rory at all times, right? I feel like there was something sinister about the character.
Maybe Gibbis is a part of the Silence or the Order of the Question. Since the people who'd brainwashed River were out to get the Doctor, perhaps they realized they couldn't take him down one on one. They had to hit him where it really hurt - his ego. Look at him when he leaves Amy and Rory, he's so down on himself, it's hard to recognize "The Doctor" in him. After watching more people die, admitting aloud that he's not as OMGELEVENTY!ORSUMBADASS as he previously believed he was, he's at risk. His broken faith led him to dump his companions off before he could fail them and watch them, too, die. A Doctor who has no faith in himself or why he does what he does is at a disadvantage. He's better off with somebody, not only to call him on his bullshit but to PROTECT him. He's vulnerable alone. We know these people have pulled elaborate schemes to get at him before, why not plop him in some hotel and set him up to fail? Kind of funny, that speech the minotaur made at the end, when you think of it in those terms.
"An ancient creature, drenched in blood of the innocent, drifting through space in an endless shifting maze, for such a creature death would be a gift."
It's reminiscent of what River told him, as well as Amy and Rory, near the end of "A Good Man Goes To War". They must first be built up as a formidable threat so that we legitimately doubt the Doctor can defeat them; then they must be utterly defeated by the Doctor so that he can "rise higher than ever before"; then they have to pull some form of triumph from the jaws of defeat so that he can fall "so much further". The point of both of episodes was to destroy the Doctor. Destruction is not always equivalent to death. If they can't kill the Doctor, and many people have tried over the years, they can kill his faith in himself. That not only makes him vulnerable but the rest of the universe he tries so hard to do right by and protect. With this revelation to Amy, it seems like he's fallen "so much further".
ETA: One other bit that I forgot to point out, was something the Minotaur said in his first chat with the Doctor. "You have lived so long even your name is lost. Because you are just instinct." I know the Doctor was translating it as though he were talking to the Minotaur, using "you" instead of "I", but it sounds sorta like Nine when he first met Rose. He had no reason to be out there, he was simply going through the motions of what he'd done before the Time War. The name thing ... pretty obvious. Maybe the Doctor doesn't even know his real name anymore?
Wow. That was a lotta thinky thoughts and I'm sure 90% of it makes NO FUCKING SENSE at all, but there. I had to write it all out more detailed than I'm used to because, like I said, I saw this episode in a completely different way than the rest of fandom.
Okay, I finished rewatching (and taking two pages worth of notes on) the last episode of Doctor Who. Yes, I took notes on a television show. It's not as though it's new territory to me, since I would take notes on entertainment often in my high school English and History courses. Then again, I was getting graded and I'm not now ...
I read through most of the reviews on my FL and who_daily and I was really surprised at how DIFFERENTLY I interpreted this episode compared to, well, EVERYONE ELSE. When I reviewed the episode tonight, I kept in mind the comments I'd read and shook my head, wondering, "I just don't understand how they see it that way." So that's why I took notes, jotting down reasons and "evidence" for why I interpreted it how I did.
From almost the get-go, this episode was about THE DOCTOR. We had Doctor-lite (ish) last week, and, even though the companions were involved, the plot was Doctor-centric this week. Anyway! This is where I differ from the rest of fandom: I thought the entire hotel was the Doctor's room. It's called "The God Complex", for fuck's sake. A title that's even referenced within the episode and to the Doctor himself. Almost since the revival of the series, we've had this idea of "God" attached to the Doctor in some amount. Most heavy-handedly with RTD's "Lonely God" nonsense. I've said before the Doctor's had a Complex since 1963, but at least he had a higher power (the Time Lords) to be "afraid" of then. Following, in no structured or particularly coherent terms, are the reasons why I felt like it was the Doctor's prison from the beginning.
Usually, the Doctor is the one most excited when he and his companions unexpectedly end up in a seemingly mundane location. With the hotel, it's not just excitement, it's giddiness. As I think on it now, he might've been aware something more was going on with this location than it seemed in that moment. He's going on and on about what's brilliant about the construction and randomness of the "hotel from the 80s" in the middle of nowhere aspect. In a way that baffles even me as a person who's seen almost all of the show and heard tons of audios. It's as though this place is specifically geared to engage him, no one else. And there's not a hint of another person in the place until the Doctor rings the bell at the check in counter. Three people, one obviously not human, appear out of nowhere, panicked and terrified. Kinda strange, I thought, even the first go around. But this feeds the Doctor's curiosity - he wants to know who, what, when, where, how and why they got there. All have differing stories. One of them, however, shines brighter than the rest - Nurse/Doctor Rita.
This group of people is engineered to feed into his ego/interest. First, we have Rita, who is not just clever, but so clever it makes the Doctor tell Amy she's "fired". Notice he only directed the comment to AMY, not to Rory as well. Rita is level-headed, smart, logical, confident and in control of her emotions. She's willing to accept the Doctor and the others are in the same boat based on observations she's made of them personally. Later, when talking to her, she's not just clever but she has a rapport with him that makes him behave differently than he does with Amy or Rory. With Rita, he doesn't seem to be showing off and he relates to her on a more equal level. She even makes him laugh with her wit. Rita is the ideal companion. With the other two, he has conventional one-off companions. A human male, who's scared out of his wits and an alien who isn't as scared but will gladly surrender to the Doctor, Amy and Rory. Howie, the conspiracy theorist nerd and Gibbis, a Tivolian whose planet has been invaded so many times, they don't even try to fight back anymore. Both have followed Rita's lead, and they're more willing to look to the Doctor to save them. There's a fourth, Joe, whom they find already in the thrall of the mysterious monster. Still, that doesn't stop the Doctor from wanting to save him.
In the hotel and the people already there, this seems like a standard set up for a Doctor Who episode. But, like I said, things felt off/odd from the beginning. Another aspect I thought suggested the whole hotel was the Doctor's room was the fact he and he alone found the bodies of those who'd died. He was alone when he found Howie, when he found Joe, when he saw Rita stumbling through the corridors on the security cameras. Each time, it was another reminder he'd failed someone, reinforcing his will to protect and save those remaining. With Rita, it was interesting how she'd responded when he told her he would come for her. She didn't want him to, since he'd put himself in the way, as she'd already accepted her death because of her faith in God. She is not looking to him for protection. She even confronted him about his need to do so on the steps. "Why is it up to you to save us? That's quite a God Complex you've got there." His faith in his own abilities to stop these things drives him. Even if he can't save everyone, he does manage to stop whatever from going on to hurt others. After all of this time, he can still have that within himself.
I realize the Doctor did find a room that was meant for him. Judging by the sounds coming from the inside, it was likely the demise of the TARDIS he feared the most. Or maybe the end of the universe. A number of things could make the cloister bells to ring, but whenever they have in the past, he's managed to stop whatever it was that caused them to do so. The look on his face, the slight smile, when he said, "Of course it's you." He knows he doesn't have to be afraid of what's inside; he knows he can stop it, he's done it before. He put the sign on it, I think, to mark the room in case it showed up again. (However, in terms of the narrative, I'm sure it was there to suggest what I'm writing about - the entire hotel was his room, but more on this later.) Relatedly, some people said a woman's voice was coming from his room. Naturally, they all assumed it was River. But I didn't hear any voices when he'd opened the door. Just the ones before he did and it was male and female, neither of them any different than those heard with the other victims.
I'd like to put Rory in his own paragraph because I've read several complaints about a lack of continuity between this episode and the end of "The Girl Who Waited". It was another clue - for me - the hotel was the Doctor's room, when it tried to let Rory out because, as the Doctor explained, it had no interest in Rory. Rory wasn't superstitious or blindly faithful in anything, giving it nothing to feed on. After "The Girl Who Waited", the Doctor knew Rory did not believe in him anymore, not the way Amy still did. The fight they had in the TARDIS while older!Amy begged to be let inside, it was the end of the full trust Rory put into the Doctor. In fact, he was so over being with him, he spoke about his and Amy's travels with the Doctor in the past tense. Something the Doctor was disturbed by when he'd realized it. After Rory's tells the Doctor about Howie and how he'd overcome a stutter, Rory says something like, "We forget not all victories are about saving the universe." You see this glimpse of the Doctor and Matt Smith gives this very faint smile. Almost to say, "Of course Rory would pick up on something like that and realize the significance." Rory's always been in a different emotional and mental place than Amy and the commentary about Howie reminded the Doctor yet again. Rory's an adult. Amy is still very much little Amelia who will not stop believing in him.
What confirmed, for me, since no one else in fandom appeared to view the ep this way, the entire hotel was his room was the last ten minutes. When he figured out it wasn't fear but faith that the Minotaur fed upon. So, if the hotel was his room, then it was actually him the Minotaur would be the most drawn to. He's a Time Lord, his arrogance and his own self-belief is a 14 course meal. When Amy asked him, "What do Time Lords pray to?", my immediate response was, "They're arrogant enough ... themselves." The Doctors's reaction seemed as though he was thinking that but didn't want to say it, since I'm sure he knew his was the source of faith the Minotaur wanted, not Amy's. When he tells Amy to forget her faith in him and proceeds to talk about how he's unperfect, not a hero, how much he'd screwed people up and made mistakes in his life, it's interesting to note he wasn't seeing Amy as Amy, but Amy as AMELIA. If he was trying to break Amy's faith in him, wouldn't he have seen her as her? Amelia was his biggest mistake - his selfishness, his need to be worshipped and adored are what messed up Amelia's life and, ultimately, put Amy and Rory into these dangerous situations. He wasn't saying those things to just kill Amy's faith in him, but to destroy what faith he had in himself. It wasn't until he looked totally defeated the Minotaur finally collapsed and the program stopped running.
Also, I thought it was interesting that the Doctor, Amy, Rory, the Minotaur, the TARDIS, Gibbis and the "Do Not Disturb" sign were the only things left in the room. If there had been three actual dead bodies within the PROGRAM, wouldn't they have ended up there with them? It also was intriguing simply because Gibbis was still there. During the ep, I got this vibe that there was more to Gibbis. In the scene after they'd witnessed the Weeping Angels, and Amy's telling him the Doctor will figure it out and save them, the tone of voice he used was kinda creepy. "If the Weeping Angels weren't meant for you, your room must still be out there." They showed a shot of his face, with this strange, almost devious grin and a creepy twinkle in his eyes. He was even more cold as the Doctor tried to assure them he'd figure out what was going on and save them. "You keep saying that but you never do. And while we're waiting, people die and we'll be next."
When nothing came from of his character, I felt set up for something which never happened. I was convinced Gibbis was connected to what was going on. Even more so when the Doctor was talking to the Minotaur and it told him that it just wanted to the whole thing to stop. Well, there had to be more to it than a programming glitch. Again, why didn't the bodies of the other three appear when the program shut down? Or the bodies of everyone else who'd died there? Only Gibbis remained. Interestingly enough, the prison was in orbit of the planet he'd claimed was his own. And if Gibbis' faith was in a conquering force to come and "save" them, logically, he'd have been the first in the group to die. Almost as soon as he'd arrived, that would've been his default reaction and he'd have "praised him" long before Joe. On my second review, I thought it was odd they were showing him scavenging, alone, while the Doctor, Amy and Rory watched Rita die on the monitors. If the Minotaur were such a threat to him, you'd think someone that timid would've been with the Doctor or Amy or Rory at all times, right? I feel like there was something sinister about the character.
Maybe Gibbis is a part of the Silence or the Order of the Question. Since the people who'd brainwashed River were out to get the Doctor, perhaps they realized they couldn't take him down one on one. They had to hit him where it really hurt - his ego. Look at him when he leaves Amy and Rory, he's so down on himself, it's hard to recognize "The Doctor" in him. After watching more people die, admitting aloud that he's not as OMGELEVENTY!ORSUMBADASS as he previously believed he was, he's at risk. His broken faith led him to dump his companions off before he could fail them and watch them, too, die. A Doctor who has no faith in himself or why he does what he does is at a disadvantage. He's better off with somebody, not only to call him on his bullshit but to PROTECT him. He's vulnerable alone. We know these people have pulled elaborate schemes to get at him before, why not plop him in some hotel and set him up to fail? Kind of funny, that speech the minotaur made at the end, when you think of it in those terms.
"An ancient creature, drenched in blood of the innocent, drifting through space in an endless shifting maze, for such a creature death would be a gift."
It's reminiscent of what River told him, as well as Amy and Rory, near the end of "A Good Man Goes To War". They must first be built up as a formidable threat so that we legitimately doubt the Doctor can defeat them; then they must be utterly defeated by the Doctor so that he can "rise higher than ever before"; then they have to pull some form of triumph from the jaws of defeat so that he can fall "so much further". The point of both of episodes was to destroy the Doctor. Destruction is not always equivalent to death. If they can't kill the Doctor, and many people have tried over the years, they can kill his faith in himself. That not only makes him vulnerable but the rest of the universe he tries so hard to do right by and protect. With this revelation to Amy, it seems like he's fallen "so much further".
ETA: One other bit that I forgot to point out, was something the Minotaur said in his first chat with the Doctor. "You have lived so long even your name is lost. Because you are just instinct." I know the Doctor was translating it as though he were talking to the Minotaur, using "you" instead of "I", but it sounds sorta like Nine when he first met Rose. He had no reason to be out there, he was simply going through the motions of what he'd done before the Time War. The name thing ... pretty obvious. Maybe the Doctor doesn't even know his real name anymore?
Wow. That was a lotta thinky thoughts and I'm sure 90% of it makes NO FUCKING SENSE at all, but there. I had to write it all out more detailed than I'm used to because, like I said, I saw this episode in a completely different way than the rest of fandom.