What I did on my three-day weekend. Doctor Who series 5-7 spoilers
I went on a mad re-watch, not quite backwards, of seasons 5-7 of newskool over the weekend.
It started with The Snowmen, Bells of St. John, and The Day of the Doctor in audio form at work. Then I realized I hadn't re-watched the Time of the Doctor ever, so I watched that after actually watching the last half of Day of the Doctor.
Definitely a different story being told in a slow-path sort of way. If that makes sense. I didn't know if I'd like it, as it's so much more low-key than DotD. There's action and bangs and explosions, but they're all surrounded by this quiet little story about a man who grows old whilst guarding a sleepy little town called Christmas. Where no one can lie, and a question is being forever asked.
really liked it, this time through. I liked Tasha Lem, too. She's amazingly ageless and competent and weird. I love her connection with the Doctor, and her going back for Clara at the end--because he needs someone. And perhaps she also knew that Clara would have the answer to the question the Doctor would never answer.
I cried through the ending, and I sat there, thinking about causality and how the question has been asked since the beginning of time - and how in another timeline, the Doctor dies there and Clara is there at his funeral. There was more than one reason for her first trip to Trenzalore to affect her. I wonder if Tasha returns her in the original timeline, or if Clara dies along with him? There's no grave, but it's not like anyone was looking for Clara Oswald's grave during Name of the Doctor.
(and then I wondered if Tasha knew he had hope because of the time lords actually existing in a parallel/other universe, except that no one knew they did back when the question was first hinted about so there wouldn't be hope and then I got distracted by Twelve)
Then I wanted Weeping Angels, so I went and re-watched Time of the Angels/Flesh and Stone and Eleventy and Amy are such babies and Riverrrrr. All of the lies River tells her mother simply by not admitting she knows who she is. MY HEART.
Inevitably, that led to Pandorica/Big Bang and Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon.
Again with events happening before events that were causing them in the first place - Silence and Kavorian traveled backwards down the Doctor's timeline to stop him in the past (did they think killing him during Nixon's era would work?) - And the Pandorica. Did Kavorian and her people construct it or plan it?
Even creepier: did River cause the TARDIS explosion? She lands in Amy's time and at this point, the Silence still exist on Earth and Tasha Lem says they caused the TARDIS to explode - why did they think that would be better than Lake Silencio, or was Melody Pond their back-up plan when the Pandorica/end of the universe failed to destroy the Doctor.
It would have been easy for them to mind-fuck her at that point; even the Doctor can't remember them, and River wasn't expecting trouble during Amy's Time. Just frustrated about the TARDIS not taking her where she needed to be.
(and who corraled all of them into putting him in the Pandorica in the first place, or was it there to fix the problem of Rory the dead-not!Roman plastic soldier and Amy not remembering him - no wedding of the Ponds, no Melody Pond conceived in a TARDIS in flight in the vortex)
Let's Kill Hitler still hits my sweet spot ridiculously, from the crop circles to "You've got a time machine, I've got a gun. What the hell, let's kill Hitler." to "it wasn't going to be guns for you, the man of peace. My love." to "you're still trying to save them" to "help them. River, please." (and then I was crying again, fu, Moff)
I mean.
I watched A Good Man Goes to War first. I meant to only watch a little, but failed at that because it is everything I love about Moff's Who.
And Lorna. dammit, I want to see Lorna Bucket alive again (I know, people die).
(also, can we talk about the death toll in Moff Who, because everyone's always saying he's the "Everybody lives!" dude and yet the death toll is fucking enormous in some of his stuff. He kills at least ten cleric soldiers in Flesh and Stone, and countless soldiers and Silurians in AGMGtW, not to mention an entire cyber-fleet, though that's unimpressive. They need to go back to skulking about, Moff. Make them skulk more. And bring back Voga)
Sorry, tangent.
I understand why they didn't get into the trauma of losing Melody. It's too big, too encompassing and too easily dropped into dull soapy fare. Dramuh is never helpful in Doctor Who. But I do feel that later episodes pulled on it, melded it into the way Rory and Amy reacted to events (the Amy of series five who'd never been a ganger or pregnant wouldn't have been full of bitter hatred as she aged on her own at Two Streams)
Then the Wedding of River Song (and the endign of Closing Time for the River bit), because I wanted to see the end and because it rounds out the timeline.
In an aborted timeline that never was, River Song built a timey-wimey machine that broadcast to the universe that the Doctor was dying.
How much of that message slipped through the cracks?
The time lords are trying to find their way back to the correct universe - we know from Inferno and the Pete's World stuff that the Doctor doesn't exist in alternate realities.
The time lords are searching for the Doctor and River Song blasts a message through the still-existent cracks in the universe that reaches them.
Of course they're still not certain it's the right universe. Not when reality is restored and the message is no longer broadcast. But it was. And they investigate.
The time lords send their own message back.
The Silence created a fixed point in time to destroy the Doctor and stop him from answering the question that would never have been asked if they hadn't interfered in the first place and blown up the TARDIS, stolen Melody Pond and engineered her as a weapon against the Doctor.
Going back in time caused the time lords to find the right universe and ask the question.
Madame Kovarian caused her own downfall and the possible devestation of the universe by going backwards down the Doctor's personal timeline.
The universe loves a Roman. And paradoxes.
After that startling and convoluted train of thought, I watched Asylum of the Daleks, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship and Power of Three and the Snowmen and then went back for Angels Take Manhattan. Then I decided that the Eleven in Power of Three is post-Angels because of how frantic and desperate he is. And I wonder how many other times he's snuck back into Pond Life when he misses them too much.
I rounded out the re-watch with Silence in the Library and Forests of the Dead. And again Moff kills off pretty much everyone.
(I also sort of wish Donna had found whatsisface and had a fling with him, because he was adorable. Personally, I sort of headcanon that they went back for him and they're happily married with kids on some moon colony. Because fuck season four's ending)
Then I tried to watch some more Ten and my laptop tried to kill itself. I think it's getting over-heated too easily.
DVDs are not Parker's friend (all of series 5-7 are avis/media files, so I rarely bother with the dvds, though I own them; they heat the laptop up less).
Also, why is it not August yet? I want new Who and Guardians, dammit.
It started with The Snowmen, Bells of St. John, and The Day of the Doctor in audio form at work. Then I realized I hadn't re-watched the Time of the Doctor ever, so I watched that after actually watching the last half of Day of the Doctor.
Definitely a different story being told in a slow-path sort of way. If that makes sense. I didn't know if I'd like it, as it's so much more low-key than DotD. There's action and bangs and explosions, but they're all surrounded by this quiet little story about a man who grows old whilst guarding a sleepy little town called Christmas. Where no one can lie, and a question is being forever asked.
really liked it, this time through. I liked Tasha Lem, too. She's amazingly ageless and competent and weird. I love her connection with the Doctor, and her going back for Clara at the end--because he needs someone. And perhaps she also knew that Clara would have the answer to the question the Doctor would never answer.
I cried through the ending, and I sat there, thinking about causality and how the question has been asked since the beginning of time - and how in another timeline, the Doctor dies there and Clara is there at his funeral. There was more than one reason for her first trip to Trenzalore to affect her. I wonder if Tasha returns her in the original timeline, or if Clara dies along with him? There's no grave, but it's not like anyone was looking for Clara Oswald's grave during Name of the Doctor.
(and then I wondered if Tasha knew he had hope because of the time lords actually existing in a parallel/other universe, except that no one knew they did back when the question was first hinted about so there wouldn't be hope and then I got distracted by Twelve)
Then I wanted Weeping Angels, so I went and re-watched Time of the Angels/Flesh and Stone and Eleventy and Amy are such babies and Riverrrrr. All of the lies River tells her mother simply by not admitting she knows who she is. MY HEART.
Inevitably, that led to Pandorica/Big Bang and Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon.
Again with events happening before events that were causing them in the first place - Silence and Kavorian traveled backwards down the Doctor's timeline to stop him in the past (did they think killing him during Nixon's era would work?) - And the Pandorica. Did Kavorian and her people construct it or plan it?
Even creepier: did River cause the TARDIS explosion? She lands in Amy's time and at this point, the Silence still exist on Earth and Tasha Lem says they caused the TARDIS to explode - why did they think that would be better than Lake Silencio, or was Melody Pond their back-up plan when the Pandorica/end of the universe failed to destroy the Doctor.
It would have been easy for them to mind-fuck her at that point; even the Doctor can't remember them, and River wasn't expecting trouble during Amy's Time. Just frustrated about the TARDIS not taking her where she needed to be.
(and who corraled all of them into putting him in the Pandorica in the first place, or was it there to fix the problem of Rory the dead-not!Roman plastic soldier and Amy not remembering him - no wedding of the Ponds, no Melody Pond conceived in a TARDIS in flight in the vortex)
Let's Kill Hitler still hits my sweet spot ridiculously, from the crop circles to "You've got a time machine, I've got a gun. What the hell, let's kill Hitler." to "it wasn't going to be guns for you, the man of peace. My love." to "you're still trying to save them" to "help them. River, please." (and then I was crying again, fu, Moff)
I mean.
I watched A Good Man Goes to War first. I meant to only watch a little, but failed at that because it is everything I love about Moff's Who.
And Lorna. dammit, I want to see Lorna Bucket alive again (I know, people die).
(also, can we talk about the death toll in Moff Who, because everyone's always saying he's the "Everybody lives!" dude and yet the death toll is fucking enormous in some of his stuff. He kills at least ten cleric soldiers in Flesh and Stone, and countless soldiers and Silurians in AGMGtW, not to mention an entire cyber-fleet, though that's unimpressive. They need to go back to skulking about, Moff. Make them skulk more. And bring back Voga)
Sorry, tangent.
I understand why they didn't get into the trauma of losing Melody. It's too big, too encompassing and too easily dropped into dull soapy fare. Dramuh is never helpful in Doctor Who. But I do feel that later episodes pulled on it, melded it into the way Rory and Amy reacted to events (the Amy of series five who'd never been a ganger or pregnant wouldn't have been full of bitter hatred as she aged on her own at Two Streams)
Then the Wedding of River Song (and the endign of Closing Time for the River bit), because I wanted to see the end and because it rounds out the timeline.
In an aborted timeline that never was, River Song built a timey-wimey machine that broadcast to the universe that the Doctor was dying.
How much of that message slipped through the cracks?
The time lords are trying to find their way back to the correct universe - we know from Inferno and the Pete's World stuff that the Doctor doesn't exist in alternate realities.
The time lords are searching for the Doctor and River Song blasts a message through the still-existent cracks in the universe that reaches them.
Of course they're still not certain it's the right universe. Not when reality is restored and the message is no longer broadcast. But it was. And they investigate.
The time lords send their own message back.
The Silence created a fixed point in time to destroy the Doctor and stop him from answering the question that would never have been asked if they hadn't interfered in the first place and blown up the TARDIS, stolen Melody Pond and engineered her as a weapon against the Doctor.
Going back in time caused the time lords to find the right universe and ask the question.
Madame Kovarian caused her own downfall and the possible devestation of the universe by going backwards down the Doctor's personal timeline.
The universe loves a Roman. And paradoxes.
After that startling and convoluted train of thought, I watched Asylum of the Daleks, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship and Power of Three and the Snowmen and then went back for Angels Take Manhattan. Then I decided that the Eleven in Power of Three is post-Angels because of how frantic and desperate he is. And I wonder how many other times he's snuck back into Pond Life when he misses them too much.
I rounded out the re-watch with Silence in the Library and Forests of the Dead. And again Moff kills off pretty much everyone.
(I also sort of wish Donna had found whatsisface and had a fling with him, because he was adorable. Personally, I sort of headcanon that they went back for him and they're happily married with kids on some moon colony. Because fuck season four's ending)
Then I tried to watch some more Ten and my laptop tried to kill itself. I think it's getting over-heated too easily.
DVDs are not Parker's friend (all of series 5-7 are avis/media files, so I rarely bother with the dvds, though I own them; they heat the laptop up less).
Also, why is it not August yet? I want new Who and Guardians, dammit.