meta: Jack in "Doctor Who: End of Time"

[rose71]

Enough about the long drawn-out exit of RTD as lead writer David Tennant as Ten. (Just kidding--I'm sad too.) Now it's time to talk about the most important 97 seconds of Doctor Who this year... the reappearance of Jack!

SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT

Comments

[bedawyn]

I think the non-randomness definitely makes a difference! My first reaction to the scene, not recognizing Alonso, was that the Doctor was just underestimating Jack again, thinking an easy shag would be all Jack wanted. I considered the possibility that the Doctor was instead pointing him toward someone who needed some kind of help at a time that Jack needed to be helpful as well as to be distracted from his moroseness (since Alonso also stuck out rather badly in that bar, implying some similarity with Jack), but I also thought that second option was mostly wishful thinking on my part. But knowing it's Alonso from VotD makes the second option much much more likely than the first.

Another thing to think about in terms of the Doctor being Jack's CO... I'm not convinced that Jack did understand what Ten was getting at, though hopefully he'd figure it out later. Because the Doctor is his CO and lately he's been that far more than his friend. So in that situation, is Jack going to look up and assume, "Oh, the Doctor's playing matchmaker again; he's always been so supportive of my sexuality"? Or is going to assume "The Doctor's here, there must be trouble afoot, this Alonso guy must be involved and the Doctor wants me to keep an eye on him or something. Guess I'll investigate by doing what I do best"?

I'll have to rewatch the scene if I can find it on Youtube, and maybe rewatching will convince me that Jack did understand the message of acceptance. I'd really prefer to believe that, because it's just too sad for Jack otherwise. But it wasn't my first take on the scene.