(Untitled)

[rynne]

Complete fail, Amazon. COMPLETE FAIL.

In other news, I watched Planet of the Dead again, with heart_of_man.

Comments

[shinyopals]

I got very much the same thing as you did from his compliments and squeeing. It's what he does, after all. I think there might also have been an element of him knowing that he wasn't going to let her come with him, so he was sort of free to not think too hard about stuff.

Like you said, from a human perspective, it was incredibly flirty. But from where he's sitting, it probably didn't even occur to him. Like Martha falling for him. And like "I'll be health, you can be safety". He was also fairly clear, when she kissed him, that she'd crossed a line. Just like with Martha's flirting at the end of Smith and Jones and how he completely backed down and outright said "no", he was the same to Christina - brushing her off (although not quite as excessively because he knew they'd be saying goodbye soon, anyway). Rose was the only person whose flirting and talk of "dates" he outright encouraged.

I could see the spark between them, but I don't think he could have fallen for her quite like Rose. The sand-in-her-hair scene illustrated this for me. It didn't make me hate Christina (everyone's got flaws, after all, and this fitted with her character) but it did make me think of the Doctor in New Earth: "There people are dying, and Rose would care". A bit of chemistry with someone (and some overly positive signals in that way he does) doesn't make it any sort of true love.

I also noticed the Moffat-ish stuff, particularly watching the Confidential, when RTD talked about how the swarm are just doing what's in their nature. Thing is, that didn't bother me because I know RTD can write other things, whereas I've yet to see that with Moffat.

As for Christina herself, in part I can understand it. She was being marketed as "the companion", even as a one off companion, and therefore her role was always going to be bigger. In actuality, she reminded me more of Jack or even the Doctor himself (and a bit of Jenny) than Rose, Martha or Donna (despite the slight Martha-ness to her relationship) because she was never shown on a sort of ordinary human level.

I can see where you're coming from, definitely. And I can see the dilemma. It's easy for me to explain why I have less issues with Christina than Moffat's Reinette, because he wrote Reinette as fairly useless. It's trickier for me to explain why I like her more than River Song, because the flirting and some of the smugness, as well as being generally competent and having a lot of tricks up her sleeve - they're very similar for both characters.

I think in part, it's because in PotD, the Doctor's doing what he tends to do: singling out one person to help him (although Christina singled him out). If he'd been in a better emotional place, she'd probably have gone on to being a companion (although whether that would have been good or bad is another debate altogether). Whereas with SitL/FotD, Donna was sidelined to make way for SHINY NEW PERSON.

Maybe there is some bias from me. It's probably hard to argue that there isn't, at this stage, given how strongly I feel about Moffat compared to RTD, but I also think PotD was enjoyable for other reasons, and SitL/FotD sucked for other reasons. I liked Christina more than River, but everyone's always going to have preferences. And the Doctor's relationship with Christina felt perfectly reasonable. With River it was just messed up and only existed to preserve the time lines.