Hell Bent
I haven't been talking about this year's Doctor Who here, only in comments elsewhere; no particular reason, I've enjoyed most of it apart from The One We Won't Talk About. But the finale (until Christmas) has prompted me to say something.
As an episode, it didn't do a lot for me, but then that's Gallifrey for you. The Time Lords: so fascinating as an unseen presence, so tedious when you actually go and visit them. In my Platonic Form of Doctor Who, they are still enigmatic figures seen only in black and white, to symbolise the difficulty of representing four dimensions on screen. Anyway, so much for Gallifrey.
It picked up for me in the final scenes when they left all that behind. This was definitely my favourite appearance by Ashildr. My only regret is that her conversation with the Doctor wasn't combined with a game of chess - I'd have had them making dramatic moves on the board to accompany each new theory about the Hybrid. And then Ashildr moving two pieces at once to achieve checkmate... because that's the sort of move you make to win at chess in DW. But I enjoyed what she said, anyway, because of her calm analysis of Clara's death; that it wasn't her fault or the Doctor's, it was the result of Clara's own choices. That restored some perspective after the Doctor had turned everything on its head; instead of risking everything to save the fabric of time and space, he was obsessively pulling holes in the fabric to save his friend. Who told him herself that this was ridiculous.
And this is what got me over my queasiness at the Doctor making so much fuss about Clara. I liked Clara, once she got together with this Doctor; they had very good chemistry. But I rebel against any storyline where any particular companion is more special than the others. The message of Fenric is that he loves them all. He'd die for any of them, but he shouldn't go this far. The saving grace here is that everyone knows that, and says so.
Of course I cheered when we got to the avenging of Donna's mindwipe. But that got me to a theory about Moffat's Doctors. A lot of people have commented that the companions are now so unable to give up life with the Doctor that they have to be forcibly torn away. This episode made me think that it's the other way round; the Doctor is so emotionally dependent on his companions that he's the one who has to be forced apart from them. With both Amy and Clara, there's an obvious reason for it. He told Amy that he keeps running back to her because you were the first. The first face this face saw. And you're seared on to my hearts. The same thing happened when he regenerated in front of Clara. He's imprinted on these women. When Amy made her choice, for the last decisive time, I saw the Doctor as a child begging his mother not to leave him. This time, he was even more distraught, forcing Clara to do what he did to Donna, removing his memories so that he'd finally let go.
So I like both Amy's and Clara's exits, because they both overcome their obsession with him and choose to leave and live their lives with somebody else. (I love the idea of Clara and Ashildr teaming up in their own TARDIS.) They're the opposite of Rose. And maybe Moffat's Doctors are the opposite of Davies's Doctors, precisely because they can't leave and their companions have to take charge and make the decision instead.
But I do rather hope that the next companion avoids all regeneration imprinting, and in time can say "Well, that was fun, but I must be going now", with the Doctor replying "Really good to know you, enjoy the rest of your life."
ETA: Another thing I loved about the conversation between the Doctor and Ashildr is the way Moffat tackled the Hybrid issue. Three good things about this:
(1) It repeated the trick I really enjoyed in The Empty Hearse, of not making any one solution canonical (the Life on Mars error), but offering more than one solution, giving a little more weight to one of them, but not confirming that any of them is correct - there's still room for more. So every fan can continue to believe that their preferred solution is correct.
(2) I was very pleased with the idea that the Doctor didn't have the answer on the Hybrid during his imprisonment in Heaven Sent, but merely pretended that he did because he realised that was what they were after. If he'd admitted he had no idea, and they believed him, they might have switched off the teleport.
(3) The third possibility, that the Hybrid is Doctor/Companion, brings us back to Doctor-Donna, and reinforces my satisfaction at the reworking of the Donna theme.
In fact, I am now thinking that Moffat was using the Hybrid as a metaphor for the premise of Doctor Who: that the essence of the show is the blend of Doctor and Companion, in a dramatic sense rather than the literal one of Journey's End. Ashildr, you are very clever.
Also posted on Dreamwidth, with
comments.
As an episode, it didn't do a lot for me, but then that's Gallifrey for you. The Time Lords: so fascinating as an unseen presence, so tedious when you actually go and visit them. In my Platonic Form of Doctor Who, they are still enigmatic figures seen only in black and white, to symbolise the difficulty of representing four dimensions on screen. Anyway, so much for Gallifrey.
It picked up for me in the final scenes when they left all that behind. This was definitely my favourite appearance by Ashildr. My only regret is that her conversation with the Doctor wasn't combined with a game of chess - I'd have had them making dramatic moves on the board to accompany each new theory about the Hybrid. And then Ashildr moving two pieces at once to achieve checkmate... because that's the sort of move you make to win at chess in DW. But I enjoyed what she said, anyway, because of her calm analysis of Clara's death; that it wasn't her fault or the Doctor's, it was the result of Clara's own choices. That restored some perspective after the Doctor had turned everything on its head; instead of risking everything to save the fabric of time and space, he was obsessively pulling holes in the fabric to save his friend. Who told him herself that this was ridiculous.
And this is what got me over my queasiness at the Doctor making so much fuss about Clara. I liked Clara, once she got together with this Doctor; they had very good chemistry. But I rebel against any storyline where any particular companion is more special than the others. The message of Fenric is that he loves them all. He'd die for any of them, but he shouldn't go this far. The saving grace here is that everyone knows that, and says so.
Of course I cheered when we got to the avenging of Donna's mindwipe. But that got me to a theory about Moffat's Doctors. A lot of people have commented that the companions are now so unable to give up life with the Doctor that they have to be forcibly torn away. This episode made me think that it's the other way round; the Doctor is so emotionally dependent on his companions that he's the one who has to be forced apart from them. With both Amy and Clara, there's an obvious reason for it. He told Amy that he keeps running back to her because you were the first. The first face this face saw. And you're seared on to my hearts. The same thing happened when he regenerated in front of Clara. He's imprinted on these women. When Amy made her choice, for the last decisive time, I saw the Doctor as a child begging his mother not to leave him. This time, he was even more distraught, forcing Clara to do what he did to Donna, removing his memories so that he'd finally let go.
So I like both Amy's and Clara's exits, because they both overcome their obsession with him and choose to leave and live their lives with somebody else. (I love the idea of Clara and Ashildr teaming up in their own TARDIS.) They're the opposite of Rose. And maybe Moffat's Doctors are the opposite of Davies's Doctors, precisely because they can't leave and their companions have to take charge and make the decision instead.
But I do rather hope that the next companion avoids all regeneration imprinting, and in time can say "Well, that was fun, but I must be going now", with the Doctor replying "Really good to know you, enjoy the rest of your life."
ETA: Another thing I loved about the conversation between the Doctor and Ashildr is the way Moffat tackled the Hybrid issue. Three good things about this:
(1) It repeated the trick I really enjoyed in The Empty Hearse, of not making any one solution canonical (the Life on Mars error), but offering more than one solution, giving a little more weight to one of them, but not confirming that any of them is correct - there's still room for more. So every fan can continue to believe that their preferred solution is correct.
(2) I was very pleased with the idea that the Doctor didn't have the answer on the Hybrid during his imprisonment in Heaven Sent, but merely pretended that he did because he realised that was what they were after. If he'd admitted he had no idea, and they believed him, they might have switched off the teleport.
(3) The third possibility, that the Hybrid is Doctor/Companion, brings us back to Doctor-Donna, and reinforces my satisfaction at the reworking of the Donna theme.
In fact, I am now thinking that Moffat was using the Hybrid as a metaphor for the premise of Doctor Who: that the essence of the show is the blend of Doctor and Companion, in a dramatic sense rather than the literal one of Journey's End. Ashildr, you are very clever.
Also posted on Dreamwidth, with
comments.