Oh, Rory...

[bethylated]

Inspired by this article, which posts a couple of recent tweets from The Moff.

SPOILERS: Day of the Moon, Curse of the Black Spot

Comments

[katty008]

Rory is the new Daniel Jackson. It's practically official.

[onlineminiboss]

Spent quite some time discussing this with a friend... He definitely is. Funny how the SG fandom and the show itself treated it as a big joke, while the Who fandom is just getting so angry about it D: All their deaths make me cry and I STILL find it funny!

[katty008]

Possibly a big reason is that Stargate had a bona fide way to bring people back right from the start, so it's accepted that if a character dies, they can just chuck them in a sarcophagus and all's well that ends well. Who doesn't have that handicap so every time it happens they have to come up with a new way to bring them back and people can and will decide that one of them is COMPLETELY IMPLAUSIBLE RAGE RAGE RAGE.

Of course, there's also the fact that Stargate fandom is accepting and self-mocking of its campness, whereas Who fandom is under the delusion that it has progressed beyond that and is now a serious series.

[faizah_writes]

Daniel dying was a running joke in the show that even the characters were aware of, I think that's the difference. "When Dr. Jackson sees this, he's gonna die!" "What, again?" (From the same two parter that showed that sometimes characters do die for real. Season 7, 'Heroes'. Looking at Atlantis and Universe's pilot - their doctor gets a blink-and-you-miss-it death, leaving them with just a medic - I suspect being a doctor is fatal in the Stargate continuum. Bad news for crossovers. Rory would be fine though, he's a nurse

[faizah_writes]

Jack Harkness is obviously an exception, because he's functionally immortal - he can die, but it won't stick. The audience knows this, or will very soon find out, so there's no drama there.

They aren't killing Jack for an emotional response, they're killing him for plot. 'We need a man that can't die', or 'the enemy won't be watching a dead man'.

[katty008]

See, that's exactly the point I was trying to make. Stargate is accepting and self-mocking of Daniel's tendency to die, whereas Doctor Who is all, "I am a serious business mainstream show now. Death is serious business," so people are more likely to go, "RARGH DAMN YOU MOFFAT THIS IS RIDICULOUS." And it is ridiculous, but I guess that's why it works for me, I like ridiculous, and Doctor Who really is a ridiculous show with aspirations of seriousness. It's fun, and that's all it ever really needed to be.

[bethylated]

I agree with you here. What I like in Doctor Who is the combination of serious and ridiculous. The drama will completely suck you in, nail-biting behind-the-sofa serious/scary, and then all of a sudden the Doctor will pop up with Zero-Balanced Dwarf Star Alloy or Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses (The Hungry Earth), and it becomes as ridiculous and wonderful as the camp villains in The City of Death.

As far as a sense of humor about Rory goes--give it time, it may evolve into a running joke. Historically, companions have faced death; companions have died; but never has a companion been killed so often and lived to tell about it as Rory. Bless him.

[mayamaia]

Wait, what? Who fans take themselves seriously? No no no, anyone who's watched Tom Baker should know better! Oh, that's the problem.

I'd like to see what percentage of New Who fans have never seen the old series. It might explain a lot, really.

[katty008]

See? Delusions of mainstream srs bsns. I was frankly kind of baffled by all of the American promotion involved with Series 6. I'm finding myself hard-pressed to name an actual American series that I've seen that much promotion for lately.

I keep trying to get my friends to watch Old Who. It's had less than stellar results, probably because it seems one must be in a very particular mood to marathon it. One episode at a time is fine, but watching an entire serial at once just seems to drag on.