Dr. Who Christmas Special: Voyage of the Dammed

[selenak]

Of the three Christmas Specials, I still like The Runaway Bride best (Donna! Gallifrey! Darkest Ten Moment ever except for end of Family of Blood! Season 3 foreshadowing in miniature! Inspired Lunacy!) , and The Christmas Invasion least (no Doctor at all until the last ten minutes or so, swordfight as grand climax (which I'm only fond of in DW if

Comments

[ffutures]

The Queen thing was a bit overdone, but it does reflect the WW2 King's decision to stay in London through the Blitz.

I'm pretty sure that some of the soldiers shown in the trailer were wearing UNIT insignia.

[selenak]

Having rewatched the trailer: you're right. They do wear UNIT insignia!

I'm not English, but I did remember the current Queen's father staying with the family in London, too, and took that as an allusion to it.

[wee_warrior]

RTD is still contending with JMS for the title of Self Declared Atheist TV Writer Most Fond of Religious Imagery. Someone should really make a clip show where G'Kar's flogging, walk complete with cross and near cruxificion compete with Nine's crucifixion pose from Dalek, Jack's three days dead plus resurrection from End of Days and now Ten with the Killer Angels. Boys, boys, you just prove that no one is more obsessed with the imagery than an ex. That's something I can never get my head around, either. Maybe it does matter whether you were at some point religious. My upbringing was somewhat, er, unorthodox in that respect - my father, a ferocious Ex-Catholic, and my mother, a somewhat believing, but at that time not church-going Lutheran, actually didn't have me baptized and genuinely let me decide whether I wanted to receive communion or confirmation or not (I didn't) - and other than a brief stint as a Buddhist in sixth grade and a "bargaining christian" stage - I got a 4- in math, Jesus got a tea light - in eighth, I've never been

[selenak]

I just rewatched the trailer. As ffutures pointed out, some of the soldiers in it definitely are wearing UNIT insignia. So yes, UNIT is baaaaaack!

*pleasetheBrigpleasetheBrigpleasetheBrig*

Rusty 'n Joe and their ex believer issues: in RTD's case, well, the guy wrote a two parter (starring Eccleston as the man himself, no less) about Jesus disolving religion, and JMS spent half of the Lost Tales on the Augustinian "why does God permit evil?" argument, so I stand by my claim about their ongoing obsession? (I've never watched Queer as Folk, so I have no idea whether Rusty vents it there, too. He didn't in Casanova. JMS, on the other hand, always finds a way to smuggle in a messiah and/or a crucifixion somewhere, and if not that, then an antichrist...)

[wee_warrior]

I just rewatched the trailer. As [info]ffutures pointed out, some of the soldiers in it definitely are wearing UNIT insignia. So yes, UNIT is baaaaaack!

Yay!

*pleasetheBrigpleasetheBrigpleasetheBrig*

*nods eagerly*

so I stand by my claim about their ongoing obsession

Oh, I didn't mean to contest that claim at all, I was merely wondering if it's ex-believers rather than atheists per se (one not necessarily being the other).

[wee_warrior]

(btw, re: religious imagery: not quite the same, since I don't think Tim Kring is actually a non-believer, seeing that he has a degree in biblical studies, but have you seen the pictures mimesh linked from the original virus-ending of Powerless? Er, let's just say we get a crucifixion pose, some holy light from above, and something that looks suspiciously like the Pièta. What's the weirder choice - Ten or Nathan Petrelli as Jesus? Discuss...)

[selenak]

I'd say no more or less religious than the star last Christmas, which was really a ship intent on bringing death and destruction, just as the angel robots were. The finger snapping was a very non-religious Ten thing to do.*g*

And every decision affects him. It's not just something that happens, a plot point. It's a real, heavy weight on him.

Yes, it is, and that's why, Doylist reasons aside, it wouldn't have been believable if he had at the end of this special taken on a new Companion. It's of course an eternal conundrum: he endangers every one he takes with him, but if he doesn't take someone with him, if he remains alone, he's in danger of ending up as a complete Monster and he knows it.

[selenak]

Very good point about the support network and one of the factors in s2 being the family. Pre-Time War, the Doctor kept meeting at least the Brigadier if not the other UNIT folk at least once per regeneration post-Three, but Nine seems to have avoided just about everyone he knew, and Ten is somewhere in between that. Though given that he and Jack made their peace and he promised Martha he'd come whenever she calls him, and accepted the phone, and since we know he and Donna are to meet again and so will he and UNIT, the omens look good. In terms of foreshadowing, if this special prefigures some s4 stuff in the way The Runaway Bride prefigured some crucial s3 stuff, it could be important that here we see the Doctor bonding not just with Astrid but with all of the group (even obnoxious Rich Guy who ironically enough is the one to do the iconic hug at the end), and they all work together to save what's left of the day...

[selenak]

No beavers, but one very cute alien who looks like a red hedgehog!

[honorh]

*psst!* She's making fun of your misspelling of "Damned."

I rather adored Darth Smaul, as I've seen him dubbed. Wasn't he also the Moxx of Balhoon?

[mymatedave]

Funny you say that he doesn't want companions anymore, because what I got from the scene where Mr Copper asks if he can come with and the doctor refuses, I automatically thought "Too bad you're not a young woman, you would've been in with a chance."

The doctor's recent companions do fit a certain profile, don't they?

[selenak]

Well, he did say yes when Mickey asked in School Reunion, and in all other cases, either he was the one asking (Rose, Donna, Martha, Jack at the end of Last of the Time Lords) or Rose pleaded their case (for both Adam in Dalek and Jack in The Doctor Dances). I think Astrid and Mr. Copper were the first ones after Mickey to ask, and I think Copper would have been turned down if he had been young and female, too, at that point, though possibly not if he had asked at the same time Astrid did. (I also think he intended to ask Yana to come with him pre-revelation, but that's neither here nor there.) I'm not great with statistics, but going by my recollections of Old Who, I think the young and female percentage has always outweighed the male (any age) percentage by at least two thirds, so that's nothing new...