Tomalin/Dickens link and Doctor Who 6.10 The Girl Who Waited
Yesterday was mostly spent helping with the laundry and starting the daunting package of mail around after three weeks of travelling, but I did manage to squeeze some of the tv I missed in, to wit, one Doctor Who episode. I still don't dare reading my flist for fear of being spoiled until I've caught up, but here is a link I got from reading online newspapers:
Claire Tomalin about Charles Dickens and writing biographies, a very interesting interview, especially if like me you're intrigued by what biographers choose to focus on and what not, and how they relate to their subjects. It's also intriguing in terms of Tomalin as a female writer - she has some sharp things to say about Peter Ackyroyd and his treatment of the women in Dickens' life. And in terms of "it's a small world" - I didn't know Tomalin is married to another writer I much appreciate, Michael Frayn.
Now, on to reviewing DW again, several weeks after broadcast.
I had seen the trailer for this one before I left and thought, ah, the annual Doctor lite episode (which is destined to be followed up by the Companion-lite episode, an arrangement New Who worked out to give the main actors a break during filming). These tend to be love-or-hate episodes for fandom and can go either for quirky and meta or for dark AU. This time, it turns out the Doctor lite episode was the big Amy character episode (and Amy-and-Rory marriage episode) of the season, and was it ever time for one of those. Early on, I thought, good lord, not another Amy-as-damsel episode, and luckily, it turned out anything but. It also soothed the niggling feeling that has been rising while I was away that for all the trauma Moff put her through recently, Amy was not allowed to react to any of it. Between unexpected!birth while being kidnapped (complete with realisation that her consciousness had been in the wrong body for the last months), loss of child, the third or so rewriting of her life so that she now remembers growing up with her child as her bff, and of course the entire backstory, she had gone through a lot and still came across as bouncy as a rubber ball, other than the heartrendering monologue in the "prequel" for Let's kill Hitler.
Well, no more. This time, we got to see Amy transformed through the nightmare version of her initial trauma (the Doctor coming late for several years). There have been several versions of Amy around already - Amelia, Amy-who-grew-up-without-stars, doll!Amy, Ganger!Amy, robot!Amy - and here she is 35-years-in-isolation Amy. To get the complaint out right away, I kept waiting for Rory to bring up his two millennia as an Auton Centurion, or for someone else to bring it up, because there is an obvious parallel/contrast here; Rory waited far, far longer, but not in isolation, and also, he signed on for the job voluntarily with the hope of saving Amy and the world at the end of it. But while Rory at the end of his millennia was the same Rory as at the beginning, Amy was allowed to change; she became a warrior (and survivor), venting the anger and rage that had accumulated through years. Now while it would have been fascinating to see Aged Amy from now on on the show (and would make for a very different dynamic) I was sadly sure that by the laws of tv Alt!Amy would be gone by the end of the episode, but I appreciated the episodes pulled no punches by how it went there. To wit: no volunteering of Older Amy to become nonexistant (which is how these things usually go, ask Wishverse Giles or Donna from Turn Left) in order to change the timeline. Well, not until right at the very end, and that was part of her goodbye to Rory, and even then she said that if he did open the door she would go in.
I loved that you could understand everyone here. Older Amy and Rory and the Doctor, because to slightly misquote Farscape, both Amys were real and were Amy (there was one "One" significantly, because they both were), and saving the younger one from 35 years of hell was decision Rory would make, while feeling his failing one of the Amys keenly. That he would have to make the decision is the Doctor's fault, and him the episode doesn't let of the hook, either. Not in terms of Older Amy's anger at him, and not in terms of the overall narrative; note Rory pointing out that if the Doctor had simply read the map bothered to do some research first, they wouldn't have ended up in this situation. Even more importantly: both Older Amy and Rory are given Doctorish traits and visual clues, and Rory brings it up in realisation and objection: travel with the Doctor long enough, and you start to become more and more like him by virtue of the decisions you have to make, and that is not a good thing if you're Rory and Amy. Methinks the Moff is preparing their eventual exit from the TARDIS here. Yes, Younger Amy doesn't have Older Amy's memories, nor did she have to make her decisions, but she does remember Older Amy herself and she knows why Older Amy came into being. Just as she remembers the Doctor dissolving her Ganger, not being able to save Melody and of course the initial lateness.
Incidentally: doesn't mean I see the Doctor lying to Rory and Older Amy and then shutting the door of the TARDIS as a wrong decision as far as he's concerned. Yes, the TARDIS can sustain a paradox - when being tortured and twisted into it as the Master did during the Year That Wasn't. And the last time the Doctor tried to bend and break the rules of Time himself it resulted in Adelaide committing suicide. Water Time always wins, and him tricking Rory and Older Amy that way is entirely in character.
Lastly: very good performance of Karen in this episode.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/713740.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
Claire Tomalin about Charles Dickens and writing biographies, a very interesting interview, especially if like me you're intrigued by what biographers choose to focus on and what not, and how they relate to their subjects. It's also intriguing in terms of Tomalin as a female writer - she has some sharp things to say about Peter Ackyroyd and his treatment of the women in Dickens' life. And in terms of "it's a small world" - I didn't know Tomalin is married to another writer I much appreciate, Michael Frayn.
Now, on to reviewing DW again, several weeks after broadcast.
I had seen the trailer for this one before I left and thought, ah, the annual Doctor lite episode (which is destined to be followed up by the Companion-lite episode, an arrangement New Who worked out to give the main actors a break during filming). These tend to be love-or-hate episodes for fandom and can go either for quirky and meta or for dark AU. This time, it turns out the Doctor lite episode was the big Amy character episode (and Amy-and-Rory marriage episode) of the season, and was it ever time for one of those. Early on, I thought, good lord, not another Amy-as-damsel episode, and luckily, it turned out anything but. It also soothed the niggling feeling that has been rising while I was away that for all the trauma Moff put her through recently, Amy was not allowed to react to any of it. Between unexpected!birth while being kidnapped (complete with realisation that her consciousness had been in the wrong body for the last months), loss of child, the third or so rewriting of her life so that she now remembers growing up with her child as her bff, and of course the entire backstory, she had gone through a lot and still came across as bouncy as a rubber ball, other than the heartrendering monologue in the "prequel" for Let's kill Hitler.
Well, no more. This time, we got to see Amy transformed through the nightmare version of her initial trauma (the Doctor coming late for several years). There have been several versions of Amy around already - Amelia, Amy-who-grew-up-without-stars, doll!Amy, Ganger!Amy, robot!Amy - and here she is 35-years-in-isolation Amy. To get the complaint out right away, I kept waiting for Rory to bring up his two millennia as an Auton Centurion, or for someone else to bring it up, because there is an obvious parallel/contrast here; Rory waited far, far longer, but not in isolation, and also, he signed on for the job voluntarily with the hope of saving Amy and the world at the end of it. But while Rory at the end of his millennia was the same Rory as at the beginning, Amy was allowed to change; she became a warrior (and survivor), venting the anger and rage that had accumulated through years. Now while it would have been fascinating to see Aged Amy from now on on the show (and would make for a very different dynamic) I was sadly sure that by the laws of tv Alt!Amy would be gone by the end of the episode, but I appreciated the episodes pulled no punches by how it went there. To wit: no volunteering of Older Amy to become nonexistant (which is how these things usually go, ask Wishverse Giles or Donna from Turn Left) in order to change the timeline. Well, not until right at the very end, and that was part of her goodbye to Rory, and even then she said that if he did open the door she would go in.
I loved that you could understand everyone here. Older Amy and Rory and the Doctor, because to slightly misquote Farscape, both Amys were real and were Amy (there was one "One" significantly, because they both were), and saving the younger one from 35 years of hell was decision Rory would make, while feeling his failing one of the Amys keenly. That he would have to make the decision is the Doctor's fault, and him the episode doesn't let of the hook, either. Not in terms of Older Amy's anger at him, and not in terms of the overall narrative; note Rory pointing out that if the Doctor had simply read the map bothered to do some research first, they wouldn't have ended up in this situation. Even more importantly: both Older Amy and Rory are given Doctorish traits and visual clues, and Rory brings it up in realisation and objection: travel with the Doctor long enough, and you start to become more and more like him by virtue of the decisions you have to make, and that is not a good thing if you're Rory and Amy. Methinks the Moff is preparing their eventual exit from the TARDIS here. Yes, Younger Amy doesn't have Older Amy's memories, nor did she have to make her decisions, but she does remember Older Amy herself and she knows why Older Amy came into being. Just as she remembers the Doctor dissolving her Ganger, not being able to save Melody and of course the initial lateness.
Incidentally: doesn't mean I see the Doctor lying to Rory and Older Amy and then shutting the door of the TARDIS as a wrong decision as far as he's concerned. Yes, the TARDIS can sustain a paradox - when being tortured and twisted into it as the Master did during the Year That Wasn't. And the last time the Doctor tried to bend and break the rules of Time himself it resulted in Adelaide committing suicide. Water Time always wins, and him tricking Rory and Older Amy that way is entirely in character.
Lastly: very good performance of Karen in this episode.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/713740.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.