The Tragedy of Ten; or, the further frustrations of a fan whose favorite season is still S3

[tempestsarekind]

Thanks to various comment threads (I love my flist!), I'm thinking about the Tenth Doctor and why I find him particularly frustrating in certain respects, and yet another thing that irks me about the end of season 4. The other jumping-off point for thinking about this is the very end of "Planet of the Dead," but it's not about that, really (no

Comments

[sadcypress]

Oo. Ooh. I LIKE THIS. This makes a lot of sense to me

[tempestsarekind]

Thanks!

And that's a *really* good question. I'm not sure I have an answer. Because I also feel, like you, that Nine's arc is about letting go of some of that grief and guilt. But I wonder how much of that is possible because of his sacrifice at the end of "Parting of the Ways." Or two sacrifices--because he also chooses to die instead of defeating the Daleks at the cost of killing so many. It's that first act of sacrifice in particular that undoes a lot of Nine's guilt, I think: getting to be the "coward" instead of the killer. So I don't know if we could even get that arc without his "death," in a way. And I do think that Russell is trying, with Ten, to write a tragedy in which the lead doesn't die, which keeps requiring a reset; paradoxically, Nine's death *means* that he can move on and change

[lareinenoire]

Oh, I completely agree -- you have pinpointed one of the major things that seriously bothered me about the ending of S4. It just didn't feel necessary. I don't think RTD understands that not every series needs to end with some sort of earth-shattering tragedy for the Doctor, and your argument further supports that because you're right: he hasn't got the chance to change, to grow as a character, when plots keep hitting him.

And the arc he underwent over S3 and S4 did seem to point him in the direction of something new -- as you said, Martha forced him to open up, and Donna didn't let go until he'd answered her questions. But those last five minutes of Journey's End ruined it all.

It's such a shame, because the Moffat episodes have that kind of character arc, just within each self-contained storyline. Whether it's understanding Reinette in The Girl in the Fireplace or the River Song plotline in the Library episodes.

sadcypress' question is definitely an interesting one -- how would all this have played out if we'd had Nine for another series?

[tempestsarekind]

Looks like we just overlapped! See above comment for my thoughts on Nine. Part of what makes me so sad about Ten, in retrospect, is how much he wants to have that clean slate that's been offered to him, and how much he can't--it turns out he's not a "new new Doctor" after all. But I think that's still different from constantly giving him some new giant tragedy every time. It's sort of like when RTD felt the need to pile on the angst for Martha in "The Doctor's Daughter," to make her not want to stay: her baseline trauma, of seeing the planet destroyed, isn't actually *gone* yet, so he really didn't need to add more

[neadods]

He's always aloooooone. And he never gets to move past that point.

I think part of it is RTD not being able to let go of the Doctor as suddenly a very seriously screwed up character (somewhere I have a post about how 9 may have been depressed, but by hiding his angst 10 was seriously screwed up and taking it out on his companions.)

But I also am starting to wonder if they're piling on the angst so they can also pile on the "We wuv you, Doctor!" scenes that everything seems to keep ending up with. Sarah Jane talking about how he changed her life; SJ again saying that he has a huge family, clap if you believe in the Tinkerbell!Jesus!Doctor, and the outright love fest because the Doctor doesn't get enough love at the end of the latest Christmas special.

It's as if they're not only hitting the reset button to keep using the same storylines but for the Doctor so he can need more comfort for his hurt.

[stoplookingup]

I was going to say more or less this. I've given up being frustrated with Ten's repeating character arc loop, because now I see it more as Rusty's repeating writing loop. I think Rusty came to DW with his version of the story he wanted to tell-- the tormented, lonely soul who bears the burden and heavy responsibility of godlike powers -- and Rusty just can't move on from it. He has to hit the reset button because that lets him continue to tell THAT story rather than some new one. I see the excessive Doctor-worship a the flip side of the godlike powers -- it's what mere mortals do when confronted with an awesome being.

I really think Rusty's version could have been a good story if he'd only told it once.

[tempestsarekind]

Yeah. I guess I'm frustrated because there's so much that I really do love about Ten, and I wonder what we'd have gotten if RTD had been able to let go of that repeating story. Especially because as long as the Doctor is still the last of the Time Lords, he's going to have to bear that responsibility (well, he takes it on himself, which I find really scary at times--it's why he needs someone to stop him), so RTD wouldn't even have to change his story all *that* much.

I really think Rusty's version could have been a good story if he'd only told it once.I was going to say that it was good when he told it in season one, but looking back on it, I'm not sure that *was* the story he was telling. Nine is lonely and damaged, but not particularly godlike; he's just out there, doing what he has to do because no one else can do it. And sometimes he screws up, and acknowledges it: "I made this happen," he says of Satellite Five, but he's horrified by that. It's totally different from Ten with Harriet Jones, or the cat nuns, or the Racnoss, or

[stoplookingup]

I don't know. Nine has his angry, judgmental side (ETA like in Dalek), and Ten has his self-doubt (ETA like the Ood). But Nine has this enormous advantage of just one season, which we see as a completed arc with no reset. He has an ending, and it's an ending that creates a powerful impression of having been touched and changed by his companion