um WHAT
So I've now read enough about the second part of "The End of Time," and have seen enough clips, to think I would be better off if I just skipped the rest of it, because I'm already just angry about what I've seen. It's just--
So I watched the bit where he goes back and visits people (and the regeneration), and it's all so...stretched-out and self-pitying and, ugh. I guess he's already 'dying' from something I couldn't be bothered to find out about (I saw part 1 and was mightily unimpressed, particularly by the sheer stupid of the Master's plan for world domination apparently being a setup for a cheap line about the "Master race"), so maybe that's why he's being all mopey and saving people but then being ridiculously depressed about having done so, and being able to muster the slightest bit of anything that looks like happiness only for Rose, but. My main problem isn't the total fail (race fail as well as plotting fail) of Martha/Mickey, it's not that Donna's ending doesn't get fixed, it's not the WTF? of Jack/Alonzo Frame, it's not even the maudlin way that Russell seems to have written Ten's ending as an ending for himself and possibly David ("I don't want to go"--dude, you're going to be the same guy on the other side, isn't that the whole point of, among other things, "The Christmas Invasion"?). I mean, I'm sad that Donna still won't know how awesome she was, or get to be awesome again even without those memories (that's the expectation I didn't know I still had, if you were wondering), and I'm angry that I don't even want to watch the last episode of a Doctor I actually loved a fair bit, in between all the hair-pulling. But--I was almost kind of ready for that after part 1. The Ood kept saying that Ten's song was ending, but what with the Master's Day-Glo skull intruding every five seconds, I didn't feel a thing. I'd hoped I might, but aside from that conversation in the cafe between Wilf and Ten (in which DT did manage to break my heart a bit, when he breaks down about the events of "The Waters of Mars"), I was mostly upset that I'd spent my time watching. So I decided to read about part 2 before committing to it--and what I read indicated that I probably shouldn't.
Which leaves one detail in part 2 that I did feel something about. You know me; I'm a Martha fangirl. And I should have been thrilled to see her, and I wasn't. And it's not even the "let's fob her off on Mickey" thing that really, really makes me the *most* upset. (Though, seriously--she was engaged to a totally different person the last time we saw her. And apparently Russell is saying that he did it because he thought it would be funny to have Martha, who was introduced in an episode called "Smith and Jones," be Martha Smith-Jones. That is the ONLY reason. I want to slap him.)
It's this: "No weapons, just words." Remember that? Because I do. I remember Martha telling stories to save the world; I remember the woman who faced down the Master armed with nothing but a laugh and a story to spin out. I remember the medical student who was horrified and saddened by the fact that she'd taken lives, even out of necessity, in "Evolution of the Daleks." I remember Doctor Jones who might have been working for UNIT but was still a doctor--"Besides, look at me. Am I carrying a gun?" And Russell threw that away, for no reason I can see. No reason at all--because the stupid flipping Sontaran resistance will still need doctors, too, Rusty. Martha Jones, who spent years of her life training to be a doctor, who nurtured and supported and healed, saved the world with a story and a key--and Russell took that away, and handed her a gun. I was already finding it hard to hold bits of love--for Ten, for Russell's tenure--to hang onto, before this, because his endings so often undo the good he managed to create; and a lot of that love was centered on my Martha. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Russell just made that even harder. WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BREAK ALL THE TOYS, RUSTY?
(edited to add slightly more rage)
So I watched the bit where he goes back and visits people (and the regeneration), and it's all so...stretched-out and self-pitying and, ugh. I guess he's already 'dying' from something I couldn't be bothered to find out about (I saw part 1 and was mightily unimpressed, particularly by the sheer stupid of the Master's plan for world domination apparently being a setup for a cheap line about the "Master race"), so maybe that's why he's being all mopey and saving people but then being ridiculously depressed about having done so, and being able to muster the slightest bit of anything that looks like happiness only for Rose, but. My main problem isn't the total fail (race fail as well as plotting fail) of Martha/Mickey, it's not that Donna's ending doesn't get fixed, it's not the WTF? of Jack/Alonzo Frame, it's not even the maudlin way that Russell seems to have written Ten's ending as an ending for himself and possibly David ("I don't want to go"--dude, you're going to be the same guy on the other side, isn't that the whole point of, among other things, "The Christmas Invasion"?). I mean, I'm sad that Donna still won't know how awesome she was, or get to be awesome again even without those memories (that's the expectation I didn't know I still had, if you were wondering), and I'm angry that I don't even want to watch the last episode of a Doctor I actually loved a fair bit, in between all the hair-pulling. But--I was almost kind of ready for that after part 1. The Ood kept saying that Ten's song was ending, but what with the Master's Day-Glo skull intruding every five seconds, I didn't feel a thing. I'd hoped I might, but aside from that conversation in the cafe between Wilf and Ten (in which DT did manage to break my heart a bit, when he breaks down about the events of "The Waters of Mars"), I was mostly upset that I'd spent my time watching. So I decided to read about part 2 before committing to it--and what I read indicated that I probably shouldn't.
Which leaves one detail in part 2 that I did feel something about. You know me; I'm a Martha fangirl. And I should have been thrilled to see her, and I wasn't. And it's not even the "let's fob her off on Mickey" thing that really, really makes me the *most* upset. (Though, seriously--she was engaged to a totally different person the last time we saw her. And apparently Russell is saying that he did it because he thought it would be funny to have Martha, who was introduced in an episode called "Smith and Jones," be Martha Smith-Jones. That is the ONLY reason. I want to slap him.)
It's this: "No weapons, just words." Remember that? Because I do. I remember Martha telling stories to save the world; I remember the woman who faced down the Master armed with nothing but a laugh and a story to spin out. I remember the medical student who was horrified and saddened by the fact that she'd taken lives, even out of necessity, in "Evolution of the Daleks." I remember Doctor Jones who might have been working for UNIT but was still a doctor--"Besides, look at me. Am I carrying a gun?" And Russell threw that away, for no reason I can see. No reason at all--because the stupid flipping Sontaran resistance will still need doctors, too, Rusty. Martha Jones, who spent years of her life training to be a doctor, who nurtured and supported and healed, saved the world with a story and a key--and Russell took that away, and handed her a gun. I was already finding it hard to hold bits of love--for Ten, for Russell's tenure--to hang onto, before this, because his endings so often undo the good he managed to create; and a lot of that love was centered on my Martha. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Russell just made that even harder. WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BREAK ALL THE TOYS, RUSTY?
(edited to add slightly more rage)