The Hopes and Fears of All the Years Are Met in Thee Tonight
Spoilery!
Worries: Basically, the bog-standard tooth-grinders that are part and parcel of any RTD-written episode:
1. Gender fail. Donna's head really will aspolde when she remembers the Doctor, because of course no woman could ever hold a man's intellect in her tiny little mind (like Handy apparently could with no problems). Silly woman; stupid woman. And it's pretty much a given that at some point in the specials, a woman WILL kill herself to save the plot, or the Doctor, or both - right now my money's on Donna or Minnie (June Whitfield). And let's not even get into the whole Lucy Saxon issue.
2. Race fail. I think it's pretty damn rich of RTD to accuse anyone who objected to Doctor Who filming in Dubai of being a racist (because apparently we love the ethnic races unless they're wealthier than we are)...and then turn right around and make his swan song's main human villains a rich powerful black couple. We shall see how he handles it, though; he might yet prove me wrong on this one. And of course there's still the whole Martha/Mickey thing looming over the finale...hey, let's marry off the two rejected black people, yay!
3. Writing fail. Catherine Tate and Bernard Cribbins have both used the old classic, 'no, but this is scifi, so you never know' caveat when asked if their characters might ever return to Doctor Who, so it's pretty good money that Donna and Wilf are both toast by the New Year. And I might not be quite so disappointed by this if their deaths actually stood a chance of ever meaning anything, but at this point I have absolutely no confidence that RTD will do anything other than give them the Ianto Jones treatment: he will use their deaths as a cheap-and-easy way to manipulate the audience's emotions, and as a pointless plot device to motivate the main character into doing something he was already going to do anyway (ie, defeat the Master). Leaving Moffat a clean slate, or throwing all his toys out of the pram as he leaves so no one else can play with them? Either way you want to look at it, it all just seems like a big, pointless, cheap-shot waste.
4. Rose fail. The Doctor's final line will be, 'I love you too', thereby making the whole damn thing all about Rose Tyler after all. *tears hair*
Hopes:
Well, at this point it'd be churlish of me to ask for anything more than it appears we're already getting: nekkid!Master and bondage!Master have been on my wish list ever since Last of the Time Lords. A Doctor/Master snog would be nice, and I still want to see Donna kick the Master in the ghoulies so bad I can taste it.
Beyond that, though? Apparently John Simm made RTD write some more tete-a-tete scenes with the Doctor and the Master together for the specials, for which he has my eternal gratitude...so that's what I'm really looking forward to. Though it does worry me slightly that RTD seems to think that it's 'very, very hard' to put the two of them together in a scene...*shows him every Master episode ever produced, including his own, to prove him wrong*
Anyway. Thoughts? RTD actually impressed me with Children of Earth, where he proved that yes, it is actually possible for him to learn from his mistakes - or at least to skip a few of the lazy writing tropes he keeps falling back on which send such ugly messages. And I'm really hoping to be impressed again with the Christmas specials...but based on past history? I ain't really holding my breath.
Q