Doctor Who, "42"
Note: Post also contains spoilers for the S1 episode "Boomtown."
This is a tense, scary episode that exemplifies how much tension can be created by setting a story in a confined area, particularly when that confined area is a spaceship deep in the silence of space.
The overarching series themes are beginning to become clearer now; the show concerns itself overwhelmingly with the ideas of guilt and personal responsibility, and on how an individual's actions can affect those around him or her -- specifically, it's asking us to consider several aspects of those ideas: how much any one person can be held accountable for the lives of others, how guilt can weigh on a person and how much of it he or she can bear, and how then, in turn, personal responsibility comes into play in any attempt to answer these questions.
We see this again and again with the Doctor, in both practical and thematic ways. It's clear that he does bear a heavy burden of guilt on his shoulders, for reasons that are sometimes explained, and sometimes only hinted at. As he travels through time and space, we see how it applies practically: we see how he touches lives, and frequently how he changes them. And sometimes we see how he destroys them. More subtly, there's a running suggestion that he touches and destroys lives he doesn't even realize. We've had hints that he does this to his Companions, that, while he can have positive effects on their lives, he can also leave them in dire straits.
Look back at "The Lazarus Experiment" for a moment -- we have, there, the obvious parallel between Lazarus' regenerations and the Doctor's, suggesting that they're two of a kind, but there's also an even darker implication working there. Lazarus literally turns people to dust in order to survive; the Doctor speaks of watching everyone he loves turn to dust, and while the obvious reference he's making here is to mortality and death, it's not too much of a stretch to also read this as a pointed nod to how he leaves people with lesser lives than they had before he touched them, how he must do this, must leave them behind, in order to survive himself.
We also, going back to S1, have Margaret Blaine's conversation with the Ninth Doctor in "Boomtown." After he strips down her supposed act of mercy to its core, explaining to her that she only commits these acts of mercy now and again so that she can live with herself, she turns it back around on him. She tells him that he wouldn't know that, that he wouldn't understand it, unless he were a killer himself. Every now and then, she says, you let one go. That's how you live with yourself, too.
I don't think she's wrong.
And all of this connects, yet again, back to the Time War itself. How ruthless did the Doctor have to be in order to survive? Just what does a man have to do in order to be the last of his race, the last of his people? This doesn't seem to be sheer luck, but the result of some conscious, and perhaps amoral (not immoral) decisions on his part. What choice did he have to make? How does he survive?
What choices does he have to make every day in order to continue to survive? How many people get left behind, left to become dust? And what's the psychic cost of that? What burden of guilt does he carry, and -- more to the point -- how much responsibility does he bear?
So we see this in "Boomtown," where we're told that Margaret Blaine is getting a second chance, and that the choice to be better this time around will be hers -- and that it'll also be her choice if she becomes a killer again. We see it in the parallels between the Doctor and Lazarus in "The Lazarus Experiment." We see it again in "42," when we're told that Captain McDonnell bears direct responsibility for the infestation of the living sun on her ship. And, in that last one, here's the kicker: she didn't know it was alive; she acted out of ignorance rather than malice.
That doesn't matter.
Intentions come to nothing; the fault is still hers, is within her, and she dies for it. She burns for it, choosing, in the end, an act of self-sacrifice, choosing to die with whatever may be left of her husband in the shell of his body. The Doctor, meanwhile, takes the sun into himself, because he knows that he has a chance to survive it, knows that they may be able to freeze it out of him. I think it's fair to suggest that we can read this as a metaphor for the fact that he's able to survive a burden of guilt and responsibility that a human being might be crushed by. He bears much greater weights than most people -- see, also, my previous comments about the near-incomprehensibility of how much he lost in the Time War and the destruction of Gallifrey.
Other things:
The relationship between the Doctor and Martha continues to grow here. He rewires her cell so it's equipped with Universal Roaming, and he also presents her with her own key to the TARDIS. And Martha steps up to the plate in a big way, proving, once again, how smart she is, as well as how brave and determined. She tells the Doctor she's going to save him now, and she does. We also see how much the Doctor is coming to depend on her, both in their relieved, giddy hug near the end, and in the way he leaps to save her when the airpod is jettisoned, as well as in how he trusts her enough to tell her what to do after he takes the sun into his own body.
Both of those scenes are terrifying and effective, the Doctor writhing and screaming in pain as he tries to fight the sun's possession, and his and Martha's silent screams, Martha's fists pounding on the glass, as the two of them move farther and farther apart.
We also see here how much the Doctor keeps his true feelings to himself, as he reacts to Martha's attempt at a joke at the end with a blank, lost stare for several seconds, before finally snapping out of it and returning to his usual self with an almost manic burst of energy.
A good, scary episode, one that deepens the characters and the ongoing plotlines, as well as the overarching themes of the show.
I can't wait for the next one.
This is a tense, scary episode that exemplifies how much tension can be created by setting a story in a confined area, particularly when that confined area is a spaceship deep in the silence of space.
The overarching series themes are beginning to become clearer now; the show concerns itself overwhelmingly with the ideas of guilt and personal responsibility, and on how an individual's actions can affect those around him or her -- specifically, it's asking us to consider several aspects of those ideas: how much any one person can be held accountable for the lives of others, how guilt can weigh on a person and how much of it he or she can bear, and how then, in turn, personal responsibility comes into play in any attempt to answer these questions.
We see this again and again with the Doctor, in both practical and thematic ways. It's clear that he does bear a heavy burden of guilt on his shoulders, for reasons that are sometimes explained, and sometimes only hinted at. As he travels through time and space, we see how it applies practically: we see how he touches lives, and frequently how he changes them. And sometimes we see how he destroys them. More subtly, there's a running suggestion that he touches and destroys lives he doesn't even realize. We've had hints that he does this to his Companions, that, while he can have positive effects on their lives, he can also leave them in dire straits.
Look back at "The Lazarus Experiment" for a moment -- we have, there, the obvious parallel between Lazarus' regenerations and the Doctor's, suggesting that they're two of a kind, but there's also an even darker implication working there. Lazarus literally turns people to dust in order to survive; the Doctor speaks of watching everyone he loves turn to dust, and while the obvious reference he's making here is to mortality and death, it's not too much of a stretch to also read this as a pointed nod to how he leaves people with lesser lives than they had before he touched them, how he must do this, must leave them behind, in order to survive himself.
We also, going back to S1, have Margaret Blaine's conversation with the Ninth Doctor in "Boomtown." After he strips down her supposed act of mercy to its core, explaining to her that she only commits these acts of mercy now and again so that she can live with herself, she turns it back around on him. She tells him that he wouldn't know that, that he wouldn't understand it, unless he were a killer himself. Every now and then, she says, you let one go. That's how you live with yourself, too.
I don't think she's wrong.
And all of this connects, yet again, back to the Time War itself. How ruthless did the Doctor have to be in order to survive? Just what does a man have to do in order to be the last of his race, the last of his people? This doesn't seem to be sheer luck, but the result of some conscious, and perhaps amoral (not immoral) decisions on his part. What choice did he have to make? How does he survive?
What choices does he have to make every day in order to continue to survive? How many people get left behind, left to become dust? And what's the psychic cost of that? What burden of guilt does he carry, and -- more to the point -- how much responsibility does he bear?
So we see this in "Boomtown," where we're told that Margaret Blaine is getting a second chance, and that the choice to be better this time around will be hers -- and that it'll also be her choice if she becomes a killer again. We see it in the parallels between the Doctor and Lazarus in "The Lazarus Experiment." We see it again in "42," when we're told that Captain McDonnell bears direct responsibility for the infestation of the living sun on her ship. And, in that last one, here's the kicker: she didn't know it was alive; she acted out of ignorance rather than malice.
That doesn't matter.
Intentions come to nothing; the fault is still hers, is within her, and she dies for it. She burns for it, choosing, in the end, an act of self-sacrifice, choosing to die with whatever may be left of her husband in the shell of his body. The Doctor, meanwhile, takes the sun into himself, because he knows that he has a chance to survive it, knows that they may be able to freeze it out of him. I think it's fair to suggest that we can read this as a metaphor for the fact that he's able to survive a burden of guilt and responsibility that a human being might be crushed by. He bears much greater weights than most people -- see, also, my previous comments about the near-incomprehensibility of how much he lost in the Time War and the destruction of Gallifrey.
Other things:
The relationship between the Doctor and Martha continues to grow here. He rewires her cell so it's equipped with Universal Roaming, and he also presents her with her own key to the TARDIS. And Martha steps up to the plate in a big way, proving, once again, how smart she is, as well as how brave and determined. She tells the Doctor she's going to save him now, and she does. We also see how much the Doctor is coming to depend on her, both in their relieved, giddy hug near the end, and in the way he leaps to save her when the airpod is jettisoned, as well as in how he trusts her enough to tell her what to do after he takes the sun into his own body.
Both of those scenes are terrifying and effective, the Doctor writhing and screaming in pain as he tries to fight the sun's possession, and his and Martha's silent screams, Martha's fists pounding on the glass, as the two of them move farther and farther apart.
We also see here how much the Doctor keeps his true feelings to himself, as he reacts to Martha's attempt at a joke at the end with a blank, lost stare for several seconds, before finally snapping out of it and returning to his usual self with an almost manic burst of energy.
A good, scary episode, one that deepens the characters and the ongoing plotlines, as well as the overarching themes of the show.
I can't wait for the next one.