DW 8.09 Flatline
I'll get to all my lovely birthday comments, promise. But I thought I'd better try to write something... (Mind you, my overwhelming reaction to this episode is that I totally called it! *g*)
If you have a lot of time (and I mean A LOT) you could do worse than to read Phil Sandifer's post on Rose (the episode). He goes through it pretty much minute-by-minute, anaysing as he goes along. He brilliantly outlines how the worlds of Rose Tyler and the Doctor collide, alien to each other, yet the borders are permeable. The Doctor can cross into her world, she can cross into his. (Doctor Who crosses into any and every world, of course - it can co-opt any genre, that's its strength.)
Anyway, this leads me to my point, which is re-treading ground I covered earlier. But - Both Oswin and Victorian Clara were already at home in the Doctor's world. Oswin navigated it almost better than the Doctor. Victorian Clara created for herself a series of fairytale-esque origin stories:
FRANCESCA: Is it one of your stories? Your definitely true ones?
CLARA: Ha! All my stories are true.
DIGBY: Like how you were born behind the clock face of Big Ben?
CLARA: Accounting for my acute sense of time.
FRANCESCA: And you invented fish.
CLARA: Because I dislike swimming alone.
And, of course, she grasped the truth of the TARDIS. ('It's smaller on the outside!')
Now the Clara echoes had something of an advantage. But if we go back to original Clara's very first episode, we get this:
(She grabs the laptop. He grabs it back.)
DOCTOR: Sorry. What?
CLARA: You need to know where they physically are. Their exact location.
DOCTOR: Yes.
CLARA: I can do it.
DOCTOR: Oi, hang on. I need that.
CLARA: You've hacked the lower operating system, yeah? I'll have their physical location in under five minutes. Pop off and get us a coffee.
DOCTOR: If I can't find them, you definitely can't.
CLARA: They uploaded me, remember? I've got computing stuff in my head.
DOCTOR: So do I.
CLARA: I have insane hacking skills.
DOCTOR: I'm from space and the future with two hearts and twenty seven brains.
CLARA: And I can find them in under five minutes plus photographs. Twenty seven?
DOCTOR: Okay, slight exaggeration.
CLARA: Coffee, go get. Five minutes, I promise.
She tells him, in no uncertain terms, that she can do his job, and do it better. There is, of course, the slight cheat of her having had her computer skills upgraded by the spoonheads, but as 'insane hacking skills' isn't a feature she displays much thereafter - except as Oswin - I don't mind. And she pays for it by almost dying. My point is that she, even at this point, uses a narrative power similar to his own, rather than one inherent in her own world. (Compare & contrast with Rose deciding to fight the Autons.) Clara steps from her own world and into his with barely a hitch. (Almost dying could be a hitch I suppose, but she - from the start - lays down her own rules.) We see this magnified in the next story, when Clara uses her leaf to fight the sun god. Now what with that Time Beetle on a tree, I am always reminded of Donna and how she could change the whole world by simply turning left or right, because of how she was placed in the particular narrative she was a part of. If Clara is, indeed, just an 'ordinary girl' then the weight and power of her narrative falls back on that leaf - through Missy, presumably. ('Clara. My Clara. I have chosen well.')
Danny warned her against officers, and what they demand of soldiers. (And his story would seem to echo the War Doctor's, with his own moment of 'No More'.) But he's not quite grasped what's happening. Clara isn't a soldier. She's an officer. (Just look at Nightmare in Silver.)
Mummy on the Orient Express and Flatline brilliantly give us two opposite scenarios. In the first the Doctor is at 'his most ruthless', to the point where Clara questions him to a degree not really seen before. The Doctor is the one solving the problem, Clara the one locked up and only able to communicate intermittently. Flatline turns this on its head. The Doctor is trapped, Clara the one to play the game and solve the mystery. The one to find 'local knowledge' (and keep it, her own Companion for the story), the one to make herself leader of the little group she finds, the one to give them hope & motivate them - and in the process make the Doctor question his own MO. ('Is that what I sound like?') The one to make the decisions. ('What would the Doctor do? No. What will *I* do?') Yes the Doctor is the one to banish the Boneless in the end (even as he names them, oooh, naming things. This is important), but Clara essentially uses him as a weapon.
Of course there is also the lying (essential survival skill, and also bad habit - the Doctor compliments her on how well she lied to him), and she uses the exact same argument that I'm sure the Doctor always uses himself - it's for other people's own good. (Also see icon.)
So at the end, we have the inverse of last week's discussion, pretty much. Clara focussed on the big picture, the Doctor focussed on the people who died. And she was an exceptional Doctor. But the Doctor still stumbles over the word 'good'...
Back before the season started I went and collected all the trailers (meant to post them along with some thoughts but never did). However, they are useful:
First of all, the prevalence of EYES is quite something. But above that, the continual repeat of 'Am I a good man?' What I didn't suspect was how Clara would mirror this (although with hindsight it's obvious). Because what Clara does, above all else, is to mirror. And if the Doctor is questioning his goodness, or otherwise, of course this would be reflected back to him through Clara. Literally. (Clara reflected in his eye... I'd forgotten that image.) We are exploring whether the Doctor is a good man, but we are doing it through Clara's transformation into him. So, he answers his own question. He is extraordinary - but goodness has nothing to do with it.
(Or, if you want a terribly succinct summary, this Tumblr post.)
And I think that is all for now. (Esp since I've had this tab open for more than an hour now...)
Re. tonight, then I like Phil Sandifer's take on it already. :)
If you want more meta/speculation, go read purplefringe's excellent post: Eyes in Doctor Who.
And for a review-y review, check out eaweek's post.
If you have a lot of time (and I mean A LOT) you could do worse than to read Phil Sandifer's post on Rose (the episode). He goes through it pretty much minute-by-minute, anaysing as he goes along. He brilliantly outlines how the worlds of Rose Tyler and the Doctor collide, alien to each other, yet the borders are permeable. The Doctor can cross into her world, she can cross into his. (Doctor Who crosses into any and every world, of course - it can co-opt any genre, that's its strength.)
Anyway, this leads me to my point, which is re-treading ground I covered earlier. But - Both Oswin and Victorian Clara were already at home in the Doctor's world. Oswin navigated it almost better than the Doctor. Victorian Clara created for herself a series of fairytale-esque origin stories:
FRANCESCA: Is it one of your stories? Your definitely true ones?
CLARA: Ha! All my stories are true.
DIGBY: Like how you were born behind the clock face of Big Ben?
CLARA: Accounting for my acute sense of time.
FRANCESCA: And you invented fish.
CLARA: Because I dislike swimming alone.
And, of course, she grasped the truth of the TARDIS. ('It's smaller on the outside!')
Now the Clara echoes had something of an advantage. But if we go back to original Clara's very first episode, we get this:
(She grabs the laptop. He grabs it back.)
DOCTOR: Sorry. What?
CLARA: You need to know where they physically are. Their exact location.
DOCTOR: Yes.
CLARA: I can do it.
DOCTOR: Oi, hang on. I need that.
CLARA: You've hacked the lower operating system, yeah? I'll have their physical location in under five minutes. Pop off and get us a coffee.
DOCTOR: If I can't find them, you definitely can't.
CLARA: They uploaded me, remember? I've got computing stuff in my head.
DOCTOR: So do I.
CLARA: I have insane hacking skills.
DOCTOR: I'm from space and the future with two hearts and twenty seven brains.
CLARA: And I can find them in under five minutes plus photographs. Twenty seven?
DOCTOR: Okay, slight exaggeration.
CLARA: Coffee, go get. Five minutes, I promise.
She tells him, in no uncertain terms, that she can do his job, and do it better. There is, of course, the slight cheat of her having had her computer skills upgraded by the spoonheads, but as 'insane hacking skills' isn't a feature she displays much thereafter - except as Oswin - I don't mind. And she pays for it by almost dying. My point is that she, even at this point, uses a narrative power similar to his own, rather than one inherent in her own world. (Compare & contrast with Rose deciding to fight the Autons.) Clara steps from her own world and into his with barely a hitch. (Almost dying could be a hitch I suppose, but she - from the start - lays down her own rules.) We see this magnified in the next story, when Clara uses her leaf to fight the sun god. Now what with that Time Beetle on a tree, I am always reminded of Donna and how she could change the whole world by simply turning left or right, because of how she was placed in the particular narrative she was a part of. If Clara is, indeed, just an 'ordinary girl' then the weight and power of her narrative falls back on that leaf - through Missy, presumably. ('Clara. My Clara. I have chosen well.')
Danny warned her against officers, and what they demand of soldiers. (And his story would seem to echo the War Doctor's, with his own moment of 'No More'.) But he's not quite grasped what's happening. Clara isn't a soldier. She's an officer. (Just look at Nightmare in Silver.)
Mummy on the Orient Express and Flatline brilliantly give us two opposite scenarios. In the first the Doctor is at 'his most ruthless', to the point where Clara questions him to a degree not really seen before. The Doctor is the one solving the problem, Clara the one locked up and only able to communicate intermittently. Flatline turns this on its head. The Doctor is trapped, Clara the one to play the game and solve the mystery. The one to find 'local knowledge' (and keep it, her own Companion for the story), the one to make herself leader of the little group she finds, the one to give them hope & motivate them - and in the process make the Doctor question his own MO. ('Is that what I sound like?') The one to make the decisions. ('What would the Doctor do? No. What will *I* do?') Yes the Doctor is the one to banish the Boneless in the end (even as he names them, oooh, naming things. This is important), but Clara essentially uses him as a weapon.
Of course there is also the lying (essential survival skill, and also bad habit - the Doctor compliments her on how well she lied to him), and she uses the exact same argument that I'm sure the Doctor always uses himself - it's for other people's own good. (Also see icon.)
So at the end, we have the inverse of last week's discussion, pretty much. Clara focussed on the big picture, the Doctor focussed on the people who died. And she was an exceptional Doctor. But the Doctor still stumbles over the word 'good'...
Back before the season started I went and collected all the trailers (meant to post them along with some thoughts but never did). However, they are useful:
Click to viewFirst of all, the prevalence of EYES is quite something. But above that, the continual repeat of 'Am I a good man?' What I didn't suspect was how Clara would mirror this (although with hindsight it's obvious). Because what Clara does, above all else, is to mirror. And if the Doctor is questioning his goodness, or otherwise, of course this would be reflected back to him through Clara. Literally. (Clara reflected in his eye... I'd forgotten that image.) We are exploring whether the Doctor is a good man, but we are doing it through Clara's transformation into him. So, he answers his own question. He is extraordinary - but goodness has nothing to do with it.
(Or, if you want a terribly succinct summary, this Tumblr post.)
And I think that is all for now. (Esp since I've had this tab open for more than an hour now...)
Re. tonight, then I like Phil Sandifer's take on it already. :)
If you want more meta/speculation, go read purplefringe's excellent post: Eyes in Doctor Who.
And for a review-y review, check out eaweek's post.