Day of the Doctor + An Adventure of Space and Time (spoilers all around!)
I am now officially joining the club of the Adventure of Space and Time people who've been squeeing all over my flist. Watched it today and it was stellar. Especially as someone who's seen only the One era thus far, I had a blast recognizing cast, scenes, lines-and it was so exciting to see the whole crew brought to life, both the actors and the creators who would usually have been just plain names on a screen! Every character was just great, Verity especially-and HARTNELL. Oh, Hartnell just killed me. His character was so beautiful, so real, human-David Bradley did an amazing job, although the idea of an actor playing an actor felt odd to me at first. And I would always grin fondly, while watching the episodes, everytime Hartnell stammered and stumbled with his speech just a tiny bit-now the idea that this could actually come from his having been exhausted by illness so early on already just makes my heart clench :(
Everything about it was so great. Everything. The birth of it. The birth of the Daleks! The first showings, the beginning of the success-oh god, that scene with Hartnell and the kids! And the difficulty of change, already, of moving on-first Carol Ann's departure, then Verity's, and eventually Hartnell himself. That movie was such a personal and emotional journey-it just made me feel so proud of this fandom and its legacy. Fifty years and onwards ♥ And it all began with a colourful producer, a passionate, determined woman, a brilliant, grumpy old man and a bunch of other dedicated actors gravitating around him ♥ It's beautiful. I was already so looking forward to getting back to classic!Who, but now I just know I'll enjoy every last bit of the One era I have left to watch, even more than before.
This is it for Adventure of Space and Time. *breathes* Now, just throwing in there a bunch of Day of the Doctor thoughts, picked from my posts on clara-who and more or less adapted, ordered or updated with my thinking progresses:
Overall, I've been of two minds about it. As far as the squee is concerned, it's been beautiful. Ten and Eleven's interactions were as delicious as could be hoped for and more, Hurt watching them like "wtf" was brilliant-Clara, Kate, Osgood (she's called Osgood! :D), all characters were great. The Moment and the War Doctor both gave incredible performances-Billie Piper was really amazing here, and I LOVE the fact that she has Rose's face, but she isn't Rose. It's so unsettling and new, and choosing her to be in the special and no other makes perfect sense that way. This is Christmas. (I wish.)
Let me screech for a whole minute over the DELICIOUS attention to classics, THE OPENING AND ENDING CREDITS LIKE OH MY GOD, the pictures of past companions EEEEE Susan and Barbara and the Brigadier, and the thirteen Doctors all appearing. The tribute was just so brilliant and so fitting for the anniversary. ♥ I also thought I was going to scream when Twelve appeared in a flash. My god.
There are a couple of things I found confusing/problematic though-not enough to damage the whole experience, but enough to leave me unsettled. First, as far as classics are concerned-I just couldn't understand for the life of me how all the past incarnations had been called to help. But well, the image of all thirteen TARDISes all flying towards the same purpose-to save their home-was beautiful enough to make it acceptable ;) I was also really unsettled at first by Tom Baker's appearance. This Moffat interview article I previously linked to (or a small part of it, anyway) did help me understand the reasoning behind choosing Four and having him come at that moment, thus answering part of my questions about the relevance/coherence. I suppose some things you just ought to accept. It's a tribute; it's timey-wimey; it can be confusing, but it's got a meaning/symbolism and sometimes every single thing doesn't come down to WHY THIS DOCTOR AT THIS SPECIFIC MOMENT AND HOW??? The very rational side of mind is stretching to adjust, but getting there ;)
The Hurt regeneration was also very unsettling. Just… sudden, fast ;) But quite fitting that this would be the end of his journey. Of course I mourn a bit the fact that Chris didn't show up for that specific scene, but oh well. Can't have everything.
(Oh and I also love the shot of all twelve Doctor in a half-circle by the end, and the fact that if I remember well, One stands aside from the rest. The original Doctor! All the love for Hartnell.)
Now, the retcon. Not really sure how I feel about that-not happy, not unhappy either, I guess. I mean, LOOKING FOR GALLIFREY oh god. The notion of Gallifrey being back, it has GOT to blow the mind. But at the same time it is really problematic. I mean, in the Eight minisode the writers went out of their way to show that by the end, the Time Lords were just as terrible as the Daleks and Kath would rather have died than to trust one of them, no matter how different he acted. Then suddenly, Day of the Doctor rolls around and it's the fall of Arcadia, so it's all about the billions of children. But the Doctor(s) didn't only handpick the billions of children… They picked the whole of Gallifrey! And I can't help but to keep thinking about The End of Time, in which Ten was ADAMANT that Gallifrey by the end had become terrible and they should be kept from coming back. We know that his subconscious kept parts of this that his conscious memory didn't ("I don't want to go." Oh, giving this an actual reason was NEAT.). So… saving the Time Lords is great at the one time but not great at the other? I guess the situation was different because in The End of Time, he wouldn't actually have been erasing his own deed-but still.
And a smaller thing-Clara + the timestream. Clara first: what I didn't like that much was the fact that she seemed to walk away from the timestream thing completely unscarred. In fact, the extra, casual knowledge gave her a bit of a Clara-knows-all vibe that felt jarring to me at times… Clara has always been a) very perceptive and b) very resourceful, and I love her for it. In that ep, however, I don't know if it's just me, but I had the feeling that Clara was basically great in all occasions, in a way that went beyond her personal qualities, as if living so many lives as so many echoes had made the original self a super-epic, can-do-no-wrong Clara. I wasn't really that bothered by this because I felt the writing and Jenna's performance both carried it pretty well, but that impression did unsettle me a little at times. Clara is a favourite of mine, but that's in the humanity of the character. Here it was a bit like she'd suddenly become The Ultimate Companion. "I always know", etc. But just being Clara Oswald was already gold… Idk. Is it just me getting that vibe?
Clara/War Doctor and Clara/Ten were both brill though. Loved her perceptiveness, and the hand kissing with Ten :D And her meeting UNIT in the future really intrigued me too. And Clara still not traveling full-time with the Doctor, but teaching, doing her own thing and being very much independent, was brilliant. Very healthy thing (and god knows she'd need that after just THROWING HERSELF INTO EVERY POINT OF HIS EXISTENCE and living and dying for him a thousand times). You go, girl.
And the anniversary kind of left me confused all over again about the finale: because of Hurt's appearance, I expected finale and anniversary would be a bit linked together. Turns out they're not, and Hurt's appearance in the timestream was apparently only devoted to showing him to the audience (and to Clara). So the Doctor's great secret wasn't Hurt after all (?), and Hurt really had nothing to do with the Silence trying to avoid the Doctor's coming to Trenzalore at all costs-it was all just about the GI not entering the timestream… What with Moffat's plots unfolding layer after layer (cracks --> Silence wanting to kill the Doctor --> Trenzalore/his name), I thought Hurt was the next layer and so my view of things has all shifted now. XD (And while we're on the continuity between eps-well, the Doctor did just jump into his timestream, pick up Clara and… walk right out. That's what happened. Rather cool. I guess it was slightly silly to expect the special to pick up right where the finale had left off, but… yes.)
*breathes* Well, this is it. People who already commented on this in clara-who, I'll comment back sometime (hopefully in the coming days), promise :)
And I spent most of my evening doing this, after already cutting on my work time more than I'd planned with finding a proper stream for Adventure in Space and Time in the afternoon, plus various things that came in the way. Yayyyy. Oh well, keeping calm about this. (Actually not just saying that in an offhand way. My being calm/relaxed right now is good-I went full-blown hormonal earlier, flipped out majorly about the too-little-work when my mother asked randomly about it and then teased nicely, almost cried/shouted or at least my voice decided to jump three octaves, etc. It's funny in hindsight. Girls will empathize. =P)
Everything about it was so great. Everything. The birth of it. The birth of the Daleks! The first showings, the beginning of the success-oh god, that scene with Hartnell and the kids! And the difficulty of change, already, of moving on-first Carol Ann's departure, then Verity's, and eventually Hartnell himself. That movie was such a personal and emotional journey-it just made me feel so proud of this fandom and its legacy. Fifty years and onwards ♥ And it all began with a colourful producer, a passionate, determined woman, a brilliant, grumpy old man and a bunch of other dedicated actors gravitating around him ♥ It's beautiful. I was already so looking forward to getting back to classic!Who, but now I just know I'll enjoy every last bit of the One era I have left to watch, even more than before.
This is it for Adventure of Space and Time. *breathes* Now, just throwing in there a bunch of Day of the Doctor thoughts, picked from my posts on clara-who and more or less adapted, ordered or updated with my thinking progresses:
Overall, I've been of two minds about it. As far as the squee is concerned, it's been beautiful. Ten and Eleven's interactions were as delicious as could be hoped for and more, Hurt watching them like "wtf" was brilliant-Clara, Kate, Osgood (she's called Osgood! :D), all characters were great. The Moment and the War Doctor both gave incredible performances-Billie Piper was really amazing here, and I LOVE the fact that she has Rose's face, but she isn't Rose. It's so unsettling and new, and choosing her to be in the special and no other makes perfect sense that way. This is Christmas. (I wish.)
Let me screech for a whole minute over the DELICIOUS attention to classics, THE OPENING AND ENDING CREDITS LIKE OH MY GOD, the pictures of past companions EEEEE Susan and Barbara and the Brigadier, and the thirteen Doctors all appearing. The tribute was just so brilliant and so fitting for the anniversary. ♥ I also thought I was going to scream when Twelve appeared in a flash. My god.
There are a couple of things I found confusing/problematic though-not enough to damage the whole experience, but enough to leave me unsettled. First, as far as classics are concerned-I just couldn't understand for the life of me how all the past incarnations had been called to help. But well, the image of all thirteen TARDISes all flying towards the same purpose-to save their home-was beautiful enough to make it acceptable ;) I was also really unsettled at first by Tom Baker's appearance. This Moffat interview article I previously linked to (or a small part of it, anyway) did help me understand the reasoning behind choosing Four and having him come at that moment, thus answering part of my questions about the relevance/coherence. I suppose some things you just ought to accept. It's a tribute; it's timey-wimey; it can be confusing, but it's got a meaning/symbolism and sometimes every single thing doesn't come down to WHY THIS DOCTOR AT THIS SPECIFIC MOMENT AND HOW??? The very rational side of mind is stretching to adjust, but getting there ;)
The Hurt regeneration was also very unsettling. Just… sudden, fast ;) But quite fitting that this would be the end of his journey. Of course I mourn a bit the fact that Chris didn't show up for that specific scene, but oh well. Can't have everything.
(Oh and I also love the shot of all twelve Doctor in a half-circle by the end, and the fact that if I remember well, One stands aside from the rest. The original Doctor! All the love for Hartnell.)
Now, the retcon. Not really sure how I feel about that-not happy, not unhappy either, I guess. I mean, LOOKING FOR GALLIFREY oh god. The notion of Gallifrey being back, it has GOT to blow the mind. But at the same time it is really problematic. I mean, in the Eight minisode the writers went out of their way to show that by the end, the Time Lords were just as terrible as the Daleks and Kath would rather have died than to trust one of them, no matter how different he acted. Then suddenly, Day of the Doctor rolls around and it's the fall of Arcadia, so it's all about the billions of children. But the Doctor(s) didn't only handpick the billions of children… They picked the whole of Gallifrey! And I can't help but to keep thinking about The End of Time, in which Ten was ADAMANT that Gallifrey by the end had become terrible and they should be kept from coming back. We know that his subconscious kept parts of this that his conscious memory didn't ("I don't want to go." Oh, giving this an actual reason was NEAT.). So… saving the Time Lords is great at the one time but not great at the other? I guess the situation was different because in The End of Time, he wouldn't actually have been erasing his own deed-but still.
And a smaller thing-Clara + the timestream. Clara first: what I didn't like that much was the fact that she seemed to walk away from the timestream thing completely unscarred. In fact, the extra, casual knowledge gave her a bit of a Clara-knows-all vibe that felt jarring to me at times… Clara has always been a) very perceptive and b) very resourceful, and I love her for it. In that ep, however, I don't know if it's just me, but I had the feeling that Clara was basically great in all occasions, in a way that went beyond her personal qualities, as if living so many lives as so many echoes had made the original self a super-epic, can-do-no-wrong Clara. I wasn't really that bothered by this because I felt the writing and Jenna's performance both carried it pretty well, but that impression did unsettle me a little at times. Clara is a favourite of mine, but that's in the humanity of the character. Here it was a bit like she'd suddenly become The Ultimate Companion. "I always know", etc. But just being Clara Oswald was already gold… Idk. Is it just me getting that vibe?
Clara/War Doctor and Clara/Ten were both brill though. Loved her perceptiveness, and the hand kissing with Ten :D And her meeting UNIT in the future really intrigued me too. And Clara still not traveling full-time with the Doctor, but teaching, doing her own thing and being very much independent, was brilliant. Very healthy thing (and god knows she'd need that after just THROWING HERSELF INTO EVERY POINT OF HIS EXISTENCE and living and dying for him a thousand times). You go, girl.
And the anniversary kind of left me confused all over again about the finale: because of Hurt's appearance, I expected finale and anniversary would be a bit linked together. Turns out they're not, and Hurt's appearance in the timestream was apparently only devoted to showing him to the audience (and to Clara). So the Doctor's great secret wasn't Hurt after all (?), and Hurt really had nothing to do with the Silence trying to avoid the Doctor's coming to Trenzalore at all costs-it was all just about the GI not entering the timestream… What with Moffat's plots unfolding layer after layer (cracks --> Silence wanting to kill the Doctor --> Trenzalore/his name), I thought Hurt was the next layer and so my view of things has all shifted now. XD (And while we're on the continuity between eps-well, the Doctor did just jump into his timestream, pick up Clara and… walk right out. That's what happened. Rather cool. I guess it was slightly silly to expect the special to pick up right where the finale had left off, but… yes.)
*breathes* Well, this is it. People who already commented on this in clara-who, I'll comment back sometime (hopefully in the coming days), promise :)
And I spent most of my evening doing this, after already cutting on my work time more than I'd planned with finding a proper stream for Adventure in Space and Time in the afternoon, plus various things that came in the way. Yayyyy. Oh well, keeping calm about this. (Actually not just saying that in an offhand way. My being calm/relaxed right now is good-I went full-blown hormonal earlier, flipped out majorly about the too-little-work when my mother asked randomly about it and then teased nicely, almost cried/shouted or at least my voice decided to jump three octaves, etc. It's funny in hindsight. Girls will empathize. =P)