reckoner, take me with you/dedicated to all you, all you human beings
I kind of am worried about ever being able to take any romantic lyrics written by Joanna Newsom post-Ys seriously, because I'm just going to be like, "This is about Andy Samberg." And I will automatically think of him in his Shy Ronnie get up. And then my brain will explode. Even so, I am still insanely excited for the triple disc Have One On Me because if the live stuff is any indicator, this is going to be amaaaaaazing.
Last week typicrobots and I went to see the marvelous production of As You Like It what is at BAM right now, part of The Bridge Project, basically my favourite concept ever which is the brainchild of Sam Mendes. (Take good American actors, good British actors, put them together in classical theatre at BAM and then take them around the world!) The guy who played Oliver was Laertes in the RSC/BBC Hamlet, which was kind of hilarious for me. Even MORE hilarious, though, was that their Touchstone was amazing and reminded me of Jack White the entire time and had a sweet bowler hat and snappy suspenders. LOVE. (Oh, and: The Ice Truck Killer was an adorable and very dumb Orlando. But doesn't have the best handle on verse.)
In my rewatch-Doctor Who-news, as of this morning I've watched through Human Nature which is still probably my favourite two-parter. (BAINES! ♥♥♥!) So maaaybe it's time to get down these thoughts on the whole series that this whole rewatch was intended for.
Rose is a beautiful pilot. But I don't really love (like, LOVE love) the show until Dalek. This is exactly how I felt when I first saw series 1. (See doctor who tag, re: me getting stuck in the middle of episodes 2-5 for basically a year.) It's hard to explain. Because I was instantly hooked the first time I saw Rose, and I felt the same way about it this time. But something about Dalek just hooks me in a different way. And I swear to god, the fucking Dalek makes me cry. But Rose...I love that opening montage. Her getting ready for work, swinging around London, having lunch with Mickey, closing up at work; it's somehow the simplest, most perfect set-up and I feel like I already loved Rose just from that. I wasn't too keen on Mickey (or Jackie) the first time around though, I remember finding him dumb and when he gets replaced by Plastic!Mickey I can still remember rolling my eyes and getting annoyed at how low-budget and camp it was. This time, though -- immediate shrieks of MICKEY! and giggling at everything he did, including his rubber impersonator. I love the use of the London Eye and the city and the madcap pace of the pilot, all that I had remembered. What I had forgotten about, though, is the beautiful almost quiet scenes of the Doctor outside with Rose, talking about who he is, and his world, and how he can feel the world turning and revolving in space. The looks on her face -- you know immediately that Rose is hooked on this man. The Doctor. And then at the end of the episode, she saves his life. And he is hooked.
Going into this rewatch I was really keen on defining exactly how Nine is different from Ten. My verdict? Honestly, they're very very similar. They both have those moments of geeky glee and stupid grins, contrasted with the flashing anger and cutting remarks. Oh, about that -- when Ten discovers he's "rude and not ginger" in The Christmas Invasion? I remember going with that personality description at the time, but holy god is Nine rude. Really a lot ruder than Ten most of the time. He's quick to insult, especially humans, which is so funny because I was so used to Ten gushing about how beautiful and amazing humans are. And Nine grows into that by basically the end of series one, but in the beginning? Stupid ape this, stupid ape that. I had completely forgotten. So you've got that, and the whole concept that Nine is more morose. Which, I guess, he is, but it's not SO obvious. And he surely jokes around and has silly grins basically as much as Ten does in series 2. I think what it boils down to, for me, is something about Chris Eccleston's performance: Nine seems more alien to me.
I don't want to get all New Age-y or actor-y here, but when Ten is romping around and grinning or grimacing, I can feel his energy coming straight out of him, like there's nothing to block it. When Nine does the same thing, part of his energy doesn't reach me. I can't explain it. I have a feeling it's something about Eccleston's style of acting. There are only certain actors where I feel all their energy, Ewan McGregor and Russell Tovey come to mind. And it's not a good or bad thing, necessarily. I think it's good in this case; Nine was supposed to me more removed. So I guess that's where I'm left, in defining Nine vs Ten. With Nine, very frequently I don't know who he is. With Ten, I almost always do. Anyway. They're a lot more similar upon rewatch, which is great! The end.
The End of the World is pretty cool but Toxic as old Earth ballad still bugs me (2005-me eye-rolled a bunch at that) and the whole feel of the episode is a bit too grand and Star Trekish for me. Note that the next time they go to a space station (post-Satellite 5), it looks a lot more grungey and slapdash. I swear the whole production team must have watched Firefly in between series 1 and 2. The Unquiet Dead I really should love much more than I do. That's pretty much how I feel about all these first episodes. I honestly think it has a lot to do with the way the show was shot back then. I know basically nothing about the tech aspects of what they would have shot the show on, but I am aesthetic before all and I can sure as hell tell that the film (or whatever) is a different quality than it is, say, circa The End of Time. It's very softly focused, a bit fuzzy and faded, kind of video-like -- which makes it all look a bit fake. I can't tell exactly when it changes but it is definitely a more defined look by the end of series 2. I think it even still improved in series 3, but I think it's been the same for all of series 4 and the specials. And now series 5 has been shot in HD (I read somewhere) so that is doubleplusgood for me.
So then we've got the 4-5 two-parter, the Slitheen are still eyeroll-inducing for me, though I love Harriet Jones to pieces. And then Dalek.
DALEK: Why do we survive?
NINE: I don't know.
DALEK: I am the last of the Daleks.
NINE: You're not even that. Rose did more than regenerate you. You've absorbed her DNA.
You're mutating.
DALEK: Into what?
NINE: Something new. I'm sorry.
ROSE: Isn't that better?
NINE: Not for a Dalek.
DALEK: I can feel. So many ideas. So much darkness. Rose, give me orders. Order me to die.
ROSE: I can't do that.
DALEK: This is not life. This is sickness. I shall not be like you.
Order my destruction! Obey! Obey! Obey!
ROSE: Do it.
It's basically like after The Way We Weren't, and you're like, fuck you Farscape, you made me cry over a MUPPET! Only it's a Dalek, and you know they're the baddie, but still. I don't think the show has ever dealt with Daleks so well, after this episode. The Doctor maniacally torturing it, god, that look on his face. And Billie Piper is just beautiful in this episode. When Rose says, "Sorry, I was a bit slow," when she misses the escape, it just gives me the shivers.
The Long Game, for all its Simon-Pegg-having, really isn't that good of an episode. (I DO love, however, that the name of the episode doesn't make sense until you get to Bad Wolf. That's a touch of brilliance.) Maybe it's something about Satellite 5 that leaves me cold, but it just seems forgettable to me. And then we have Father's Day. Okay, talking about Billie Piper's performance, my god. All I can ever think of is that LOOK she has on her face, that hesitant yearning flinch when Pete reaches out to cup her face...aaaagh. That was an uncomfortably real performance of a moment which couldn't ever be possible in real life, and she sells it and HARD. I hate when people cite this episode as Reasons to Hate Rose Tyler, because she fucks it all up. But, and this is why I loved watching the Confidentials, what they're saying is -- she's been that absolute best companion to him in these past adventures. But it's this one time. It's her one weakness. (And they even show it again, in the next series, when they hit the parallel world, she can't resist going to find her dad.) I love what RTD said in the Confidential, too. If you lost a loved one, and found yourself watching the moment in which they died, TWICE, if you wouldn't run out and try to stop it DESPITE all you know about space and time, you are probably dead inside. Because it's fucking true.
I remember crying my way throughout this whole episode the first time, but this time all I could think about how the consequences of saving lives doesn't really make sense in context of the Doctor Who canon. Because for one, every time he finds himself in a situation of life or death, he saves lives. And those people may have been meant to be dead, to people in the future of that timeline, just like he tells Rose that Pete has been dead for her in 2005 so he has to die in 1987 or else everything is wrong. Since this episode we've been told of fixed moments in time that can't be interfered with (Pompeii, Bowie One), but when he DOES interfere and he saves Sid's dad from Pompeii or Servilia and the others from Bowie One, there are no reaper figures that arrive to scourge the world. Maybe Rose is so important to the universe that her father's death is a fixed point in history, like Pompeii or the explosion of Bowie One? But the way people just reappear out of nowhere once Pete runs out in front of the car...wouldn't it have made more sense if everything reverted back to the moment in which Nine and Rose are standing, watching Pete die? I don't know. It's still incredibly moving, but doesn't make as much sense given what we've seen of New Who.
The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances. "Everyone lives!" Oh my god, I love these episodes so much. These are the only two from the first series that I've actually rewatched before this epic undertaking, and they just don't get old. I would watch a whole show that revolved around the Doctor and Rose and Jack during the Blitz. And "Are you my mummy?" is still horribly unsettling. I still need to know what happened during Jack's two lost years that caused him to go rogue. Did Torchwood ever explain that? Maybe someone should just tell me, because I gave up on watching past They Just Keep Killing Suzie YEARS ago. I had forgotten about Rose's whole desire for some more "Spock"", and "You want moves? I'll give you moves!" I love that it all boils down to such a simple problem, a little boy looking for his mummy, and when Nancy says, "I am your mummy. I will always be your mummy," I may or may not sob like a little child. So many great lines in this episode, and slapstick, and it's just full of everything that is good.
"Go to your room! I mean it. I am very, very angry with you. I'm very, very cross. Go... To... Your... Room!
...I'm really glad that worked. Those would have been terrible last words."
Boomtown. This time around, I actually loved it a million times more. I've always loved all the stuff at the beginning, with the Trio of Amazing having glee times with high fives and Jack's "whatever" hand gesture, and the story they tell in the cafe, but I was like blah blah, Margaret the Slitheen, no one cares. Although it still is a bit heavy-handed, and maybe using the Slitheen, who wanted to BLOW UP THE WHOLE PLANET FOR SCRAP, wasn't the best choice for an extradition to death penalty story. I love Mickey's convos with Rose by the waterfront. He just breaks my heart sometimes, he really loves her so much. All in all, the end is wonderful, with the TARDIS giving Margaret another chance at life.
Bad Wolf is really one of the most genius ideas they've had. Reality shows gone wrong. How I would LOVE to see them do something like that again. And hey, there's Paterson Joseph as Rodrick the Dick, so haha, guess it's just as well that he wasn't cast as Eleven. I love that the progression of Satellite 5 has all been a long game by the Daleks, BUT they're not the ones who beamed them out of the TARDIS, it was just the poor Controller doing the only thing she could to save herself and humanity, BUT then there's still the mystery of Bad Wolf. Layer upon layer of mystery.
And this is pretty much the best thing that Russell T Davies has ever written:
DALEK: We have your associate. You will obey or she willbe exterminated.
NINE: No.
DALEK: Explain yourself.
NINE: I said no.
DALEK: What is the meaning of this negative?
NINE: It means no!
DALEK: But she will be destroyed!
NINE: No! Cos this is what I'm gonna do - I'm gonna rescue her! I'm gonna save Rose Tyler
from the middle of the Dalek fleet, and then I'm gonna save the Earth, and then - just to finish you off - I'm gonna wipe every last stinking Dalek out of the sky!
DALEK: But you have no weapons, no defences, no plan!
NINE: Yeah, and doesn't that scare you to death? Rose?
ROSE: Yes, Doctor?
NINE: I'm coming to get you.
I think I had totally forgotten about that sequence. So I got the shivers, full-blown just like the first time, when he first said "No." The look on Nine's face. But seriously, I could watch that exchange a billion times. That's right, I'm the motherfucking Doctor! ...Is what he's saying in his head. So he gets a plan! Jack leaves his cowardice behind and becomes Captain Leatherpants. But it gets pretty grim. I had forgotten, Lynda with a Y, all the people (Rodrick the Dick!), everyone on Earth, they all get killed by the Daleks. (So does Jack, but I hadn't forgotten. "Exterminate!"/"I kinda figured that.") And even the Doctor's plan will destroy everything (though in the end, he can't even go through with it). So he sends Rose back. And she eats chips with Mickey and Jackie and she's miserable. But she works out that Bad Wolf means she can get back, and Mickey saves the world with a big yellow truck and she stares into the heart of the TARDIS and gets back to her Doctor.
That scene is beautiful and chilling (it reminds me of Buffy in Primeval), Rose bathed in light and crying from the pain as she destroys the Daleks and saves the world. Again, things I'd forgotten -- I knew the Doctor had to take the spirit of the TARDIS from her or she'd die, but I forgot that it was actively hurting her the whole time. The end of this episode is just so perfect and moving for me to watch, because I guess I identify or rather empathise with Rose a little too hard. The idea of being brought out of a normal life into a life of adventure and things beyond your wildest dreams, then being forced back into that normal life without your consent, whoops. Not gonna happen. So she does everything she possibly can to get back, no matter how much it hurts Jackie and Mickey. And she gets back, but with a price. And that price is her Doctor.
The more I think about it the more similar Nine's death is to Ten's. The world is saved, everything's alright. But someone they love is endangered. So they take the poison away and absorb it into themselves. Nine comforts Rose, it's just a way to cheat death.
Oh that's right. Barcelona.
Also a week ago I watched the premiere of Skins, and I should probably have thinky thoughts on that, especially after I watch the second episode RIGHTTHEFUCKNOW.
Last week typicrobots and I went to see the marvelous production of As You Like It what is at BAM right now, part of The Bridge Project, basically my favourite concept ever which is the brainchild of Sam Mendes. (Take good American actors, good British actors, put them together in classical theatre at BAM and then take them around the world!) The guy who played Oliver was Laertes in the RSC/BBC Hamlet, which was kind of hilarious for me. Even MORE hilarious, though, was that their Touchstone was amazing and reminded me of Jack White the entire time and had a sweet bowler hat and snappy suspenders. LOVE. (Oh, and: The Ice Truck Killer was an adorable and very dumb Orlando. But doesn't have the best handle on verse.)
In my rewatch-Doctor Who-news, as of this morning I've watched through Human Nature which is still probably my favourite two-parter. (BAINES! ♥♥♥!) So maaaybe it's time to get down these thoughts on the whole series that this whole rewatch was intended for.
Rose is a beautiful pilot. But I don't really love (like, LOVE love) the show until Dalek. This is exactly how I felt when I first saw series 1. (See doctor who tag, re: me getting stuck in the middle of episodes 2-5 for basically a year.) It's hard to explain. Because I was instantly hooked the first time I saw Rose, and I felt the same way about it this time. But something about Dalek just hooks me in a different way. And I swear to god, the fucking Dalek makes me cry. But Rose...I love that opening montage. Her getting ready for work, swinging around London, having lunch with Mickey, closing up at work; it's somehow the simplest, most perfect set-up and I feel like I already loved Rose just from that. I wasn't too keen on Mickey (or Jackie) the first time around though, I remember finding him dumb and when he gets replaced by Plastic!Mickey I can still remember rolling my eyes and getting annoyed at how low-budget and camp it was. This time, though -- immediate shrieks of MICKEY! and giggling at everything he did, including his rubber impersonator. I love the use of the London Eye and the city and the madcap pace of the pilot, all that I had remembered. What I had forgotten about, though, is the beautiful almost quiet scenes of the Doctor outside with Rose, talking about who he is, and his world, and how he can feel the world turning and revolving in space. The looks on her face -- you know immediately that Rose is hooked on this man. The Doctor. And then at the end of the episode, she saves his life. And he is hooked.
Going into this rewatch I was really keen on defining exactly how Nine is different from Ten. My verdict? Honestly, they're very very similar. They both have those moments of geeky glee and stupid grins, contrasted with the flashing anger and cutting remarks. Oh, about that -- when Ten discovers he's "rude and not ginger" in The Christmas Invasion? I remember going with that personality description at the time, but holy god is Nine rude. Really a lot ruder than Ten most of the time. He's quick to insult, especially humans, which is so funny because I was so used to Ten gushing about how beautiful and amazing humans are. And Nine grows into that by basically the end of series one, but in the beginning? Stupid ape this, stupid ape that. I had completely forgotten. So you've got that, and the whole concept that Nine is more morose. Which, I guess, he is, but it's not SO obvious. And he surely jokes around and has silly grins basically as much as Ten does in series 2. I think what it boils down to, for me, is something about Chris Eccleston's performance: Nine seems more alien to me.
I don't want to get all New Age-y or actor-y here, but when Ten is romping around and grinning or grimacing, I can feel his energy coming straight out of him, like there's nothing to block it. When Nine does the same thing, part of his energy doesn't reach me. I can't explain it. I have a feeling it's something about Eccleston's style of acting. There are only certain actors where I feel all their energy, Ewan McGregor and Russell Tovey come to mind. And it's not a good or bad thing, necessarily. I think it's good in this case; Nine was supposed to me more removed. So I guess that's where I'm left, in defining Nine vs Ten. With Nine, very frequently I don't know who he is. With Ten, I almost always do. Anyway. They're a lot more similar upon rewatch, which is great! The end.
The End of the World is pretty cool but Toxic as old Earth ballad still bugs me (2005-me eye-rolled a bunch at that) and the whole feel of the episode is a bit too grand and Star Trekish for me. Note that the next time they go to a space station (post-Satellite 5), it looks a lot more grungey and slapdash. I swear the whole production team must have watched Firefly in between series 1 and 2. The Unquiet Dead I really should love much more than I do. That's pretty much how I feel about all these first episodes. I honestly think it has a lot to do with the way the show was shot back then. I know basically nothing about the tech aspects of what they would have shot the show on, but I am aesthetic before all and I can sure as hell tell that the film (or whatever) is a different quality than it is, say, circa The End of Time. It's very softly focused, a bit fuzzy and faded, kind of video-like -- which makes it all look a bit fake. I can't tell exactly when it changes but it is definitely a more defined look by the end of series 2. I think it even still improved in series 3, but I think it's been the same for all of series 4 and the specials. And now series 5 has been shot in HD (I read somewhere) so that is doubleplusgood for me.
So then we've got the 4-5 two-parter, the Slitheen are still eyeroll-inducing for me, though I love Harriet Jones to pieces. And then Dalek.
DALEK: Why do we survive?
NINE: I don't know.
DALEK: I am the last of the Daleks.
NINE: You're not even that. Rose did more than regenerate you. You've absorbed her DNA.
You're mutating.
DALEK: Into what?
NINE: Something new. I'm sorry.
ROSE: Isn't that better?
NINE: Not for a Dalek.
DALEK: I can feel. So many ideas. So much darkness. Rose, give me orders. Order me to die.
ROSE: I can't do that.
DALEK: This is not life. This is sickness. I shall not be like you.
Order my destruction! Obey! Obey! Obey!
ROSE: Do it.
It's basically like after The Way We Weren't, and you're like, fuck you Farscape, you made me cry over a MUPPET! Only it's a Dalek, and you know they're the baddie, but still. I don't think the show has ever dealt with Daleks so well, after this episode. The Doctor maniacally torturing it, god, that look on his face. And Billie Piper is just beautiful in this episode. When Rose says, "Sorry, I was a bit slow," when she misses the escape, it just gives me the shivers.
The Long Game, for all its Simon-Pegg-having, really isn't that good of an episode. (I DO love, however, that the name of the episode doesn't make sense until you get to Bad Wolf. That's a touch of brilliance.) Maybe it's something about Satellite 5 that leaves me cold, but it just seems forgettable to me. And then we have Father's Day. Okay, talking about Billie Piper's performance, my god. All I can ever think of is that LOOK she has on her face, that hesitant yearning flinch when Pete reaches out to cup her face...aaaagh. That was an uncomfortably real performance of a moment which couldn't ever be possible in real life, and she sells it and HARD. I hate when people cite this episode as Reasons to Hate Rose Tyler, because she fucks it all up. But, and this is why I loved watching the Confidentials, what they're saying is -- she's been that absolute best companion to him in these past adventures. But it's this one time. It's her one weakness. (And they even show it again, in the next series, when they hit the parallel world, she can't resist going to find her dad.) I love what RTD said in the Confidential, too. If you lost a loved one, and found yourself watching the moment in which they died, TWICE, if you wouldn't run out and try to stop it DESPITE all you know about space and time, you are probably dead inside. Because it's fucking true.
I remember crying my way throughout this whole episode the first time, but this time all I could think about how the consequences of saving lives doesn't really make sense in context of the Doctor Who canon. Because for one, every time he finds himself in a situation of life or death, he saves lives. And those people may have been meant to be dead, to people in the future of that timeline, just like he tells Rose that Pete has been dead for her in 2005 so he has to die in 1987 or else everything is wrong. Since this episode we've been told of fixed moments in time that can't be interfered with (Pompeii, Bowie One), but when he DOES interfere and he saves Sid's dad from Pompeii or Servilia and the others from Bowie One, there are no reaper figures that arrive to scourge the world. Maybe Rose is so important to the universe that her father's death is a fixed point in history, like Pompeii or the explosion of Bowie One? But the way people just reappear out of nowhere once Pete runs out in front of the car...wouldn't it have made more sense if everything reverted back to the moment in which Nine and Rose are standing, watching Pete die? I don't know. It's still incredibly moving, but doesn't make as much sense given what we've seen of New Who.
The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances. "Everyone lives!" Oh my god, I love these episodes so much. These are the only two from the first series that I've actually rewatched before this epic undertaking, and they just don't get old. I would watch a whole show that revolved around the Doctor and Rose and Jack during the Blitz. And "Are you my mummy?" is still horribly unsettling. I still need to know what happened during Jack's two lost years that caused him to go rogue. Did Torchwood ever explain that? Maybe someone should just tell me, because I gave up on watching past They Just Keep Killing Suzie YEARS ago. I had forgotten about Rose's whole desire for some more "Spock"", and "You want moves? I'll give you moves!" I love that it all boils down to such a simple problem, a little boy looking for his mummy, and when Nancy says, "I am your mummy. I will always be your mummy," I may or may not sob like a little child. So many great lines in this episode, and slapstick, and it's just full of everything that is good.
"Go to your room! I mean it. I am very, very angry with you. I'm very, very cross. Go... To... Your... Room!
...I'm really glad that worked. Those would have been terrible last words."
Boomtown. This time around, I actually loved it a million times more. I've always loved all the stuff at the beginning, with the Trio of Amazing having glee times with high fives and Jack's "whatever" hand gesture, and the story they tell in the cafe, but I was like blah blah, Margaret the Slitheen, no one cares. Although it still is a bit heavy-handed, and maybe using the Slitheen, who wanted to BLOW UP THE WHOLE PLANET FOR SCRAP, wasn't the best choice for an extradition to death penalty story. I love Mickey's convos with Rose by the waterfront. He just breaks my heart sometimes, he really loves her so much. All in all, the end is wonderful, with the TARDIS giving Margaret another chance at life.
Bad Wolf is really one of the most genius ideas they've had. Reality shows gone wrong. How I would LOVE to see them do something like that again. And hey, there's Paterson Joseph as Rodrick the Dick, so haha, guess it's just as well that he wasn't cast as Eleven. I love that the progression of Satellite 5 has all been a long game by the Daleks, BUT they're not the ones who beamed them out of the TARDIS, it was just the poor Controller doing the only thing she could to save herself and humanity, BUT then there's still the mystery of Bad Wolf. Layer upon layer of mystery.
And this is pretty much the best thing that Russell T Davies has ever written:
DALEK: We have your associate. You will obey or she willbe exterminated.
NINE: No.
DALEK: Explain yourself.
NINE: I said no.
DALEK: What is the meaning of this negative?
NINE: It means no!
DALEK: But she will be destroyed!
NINE: No! Cos this is what I'm gonna do - I'm gonna rescue her! I'm gonna save Rose Tyler
from the middle of the Dalek fleet, and then I'm gonna save the Earth, and then - just to finish you off - I'm gonna wipe every last stinking Dalek out of the sky!
DALEK: But you have no weapons, no defences, no plan!
NINE: Yeah, and doesn't that scare you to death? Rose?
ROSE: Yes, Doctor?
NINE: I'm coming to get you.
I think I had totally forgotten about that sequence. So I got the shivers, full-blown just like the first time, when he first said "No." The look on Nine's face. But seriously, I could watch that exchange a billion times. That's right, I'm the motherfucking Doctor! ...Is what he's saying in his head. So he gets a plan! Jack leaves his cowardice behind and becomes Captain Leatherpants. But it gets pretty grim. I had forgotten, Lynda with a Y, all the people (Rodrick the Dick!), everyone on Earth, they all get killed by the Daleks. (So does Jack, but I hadn't forgotten. "Exterminate!"/"I kinda figured that.") And even the Doctor's plan will destroy everything (though in the end, he can't even go through with it). So he sends Rose back. And she eats chips with Mickey and Jackie and she's miserable. But she works out that Bad Wolf means she can get back, and Mickey saves the world with a big yellow truck and she stares into the heart of the TARDIS and gets back to her Doctor.
That scene is beautiful and chilling (it reminds me of Buffy in Primeval), Rose bathed in light and crying from the pain as she destroys the Daleks and saves the world. Again, things I'd forgotten -- I knew the Doctor had to take the spirit of the TARDIS from her or she'd die, but I forgot that it was actively hurting her the whole time. The end of this episode is just so perfect and moving for me to watch, because I guess I identify or rather empathise with Rose a little too hard. The idea of being brought out of a normal life into a life of adventure and things beyond your wildest dreams, then being forced back into that normal life without your consent, whoops. Not gonna happen. So she does everything she possibly can to get back, no matter how much it hurts Jackie and Mickey. And she gets back, but with a price. And that price is her Doctor.
The more I think about it the more similar Nine's death is to Ten's. The world is saved, everything's alright. But someone they love is endangered. So they take the poison away and absorb it into themselves. Nine comforts Rose, it's just a way to cheat death.
Oh that's right. Barcelona.
Also a week ago I watched the premiere of Skins, and I should probably have thinky thoughts on that, especially after I watch the second episode RIGHTTHEFUCKNOW.