things I worry about on a semi-regular basis
The adorable stupidfaces, aka Karen and the Babes, aka Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, and Arthur Darvill, were at Comic-Con. Which is an introduction, basically, for a picture that is so hipster it hurts:
http://doctorwho.tumblr.com/post/27081899169/karen-arthur-and-matt-at-comic-con
(You can't really see the bizarre horror that is Arthur's cardigan in this photo, but trust me, it is inexplicable and terrifying.)
(This post is not inspired by any actual spoilers. Just me failing to be a real human and caring too much about fictional characters when I ought to be doing something useful with my time and emotions.)
On Sunday I went out for drinks to celebrate a friend's birthday, and at one point I said "fezzes are cool" as a reflex. Luckily this friend had started watching Doctor Who, at least from season 5 (I am a pusher...I don't even *mean* to be), so she didn't think that was weird. She mentioned, instead, that she hadn't finished watching season 6 because she was worried something horrible was going to happen to Amy Pond - and when I said nothing did, she muttered darkly, "yet."
At the moment, there is not that much that Moffat could really do to turn me completely off the show; I have a reasonably high tolerance for brushing off ridiculous plots with "LOL what" by this point, as long as the emotional underpinnings are decent. ("Last of the Time Lords" would just be funny and embarrassing if it didn't reflect the recurring deification of Ten.) But if my Ponds don't get a happy ending, we might have to break up. I have really strong Pond feelings, okay. But it's also that the Ponds have been a welcome challenge to the RTD-era ethos that The Doctor Is Always Alone, and that this is The Burden of the Time Lords. Eleven has gone from being a little girl's imaginary friend to being a member of a family; the entire point of the most recent Christmas special (the ending, anyway) was to say to the Doctor that it's not *right* that he should be alone, that there are people who set a place at the table for him. And over and over, the show seems to emphasize this, from Amy's stubbornly dragging him back into the world again when he says he doesn't belong in it any more, to River's turning up the sound of the stars so that he will know that he's loved. He seems to be re-learning, bit by bit, that the fact that he can't save or protect everyone, even just from ordinary death, doesn't mean that he can't love them in the moment. (Obligatory flail for "Vincent and the Doctor.") River has been instrumental to this, given how they meet, but Amy has, too - because he has failed her, and let her down, and she still loves him. He doesn't have to be the Doctor, Savior of Worlds; he can be her best friend instead of just her imaginary one. And that hopefulness and generosity has been so important to me over the last two seasons, even when Moffat has bitten off more than he can really chew in terms of the narrative.
So it's not *just* that it's my Ponds, or that seriously, Rory has to stop it with the dying, or that they have really suffered enough as a family already. It's that if the Ponds don't get a happy ending, I'm afraid that the show will go back to being a show about the Lonely God instead of the madman with a box, and the lesson will be that the Doctor should keep closing himself off, because his story is always a tragedy. And I don't know if I could deal with that, after the comic possibilities of seasons 5 and 6. (Hey, they both end with a marriage.) I'm not saying I would never watch the show again...but I'd probably go back to watching it like I watched season 4 and the specials, without my heart in it.
(Also, I *really* could not deal with the Doctor being a jerk to the next companion because something bad happened to the previous one, if that happened. Been there, done that, still mad about it.)
http://doctorwho.tumblr.com/post/27081899169/karen-arthur-and-matt-at-comic-con
(You can't really see the bizarre horror that is Arthur's cardigan in this photo, but trust me, it is inexplicable and terrifying.)
(This post is not inspired by any actual spoilers. Just me failing to be a real human and caring too much about fictional characters when I ought to be doing something useful with my time and emotions.)
On Sunday I went out for drinks to celebrate a friend's birthday, and at one point I said "fezzes are cool" as a reflex. Luckily this friend had started watching Doctor Who, at least from season 5 (I am a pusher...I don't even *mean* to be), so she didn't think that was weird. She mentioned, instead, that she hadn't finished watching season 6 because she was worried something horrible was going to happen to Amy Pond - and when I said nothing did, she muttered darkly, "yet."
At the moment, there is not that much that Moffat could really do to turn me completely off the show; I have a reasonably high tolerance for brushing off ridiculous plots with "LOL what" by this point, as long as the emotional underpinnings are decent. ("Last of the Time Lords" would just be funny and embarrassing if it didn't reflect the recurring deification of Ten.) But if my Ponds don't get a happy ending, we might have to break up. I have really strong Pond feelings, okay. But it's also that the Ponds have been a welcome challenge to the RTD-era ethos that The Doctor Is Always Alone, and that this is The Burden of the Time Lords. Eleven has gone from being a little girl's imaginary friend to being a member of a family; the entire point of the most recent Christmas special (the ending, anyway) was to say to the Doctor that it's not *right* that he should be alone, that there are people who set a place at the table for him. And over and over, the show seems to emphasize this, from Amy's stubbornly dragging him back into the world again when he says he doesn't belong in it any more, to River's turning up the sound of the stars so that he will know that he's loved. He seems to be re-learning, bit by bit, that the fact that he can't save or protect everyone, even just from ordinary death, doesn't mean that he can't love them in the moment. (Obligatory flail for "Vincent and the Doctor.") River has been instrumental to this, given how they meet, but Amy has, too - because he has failed her, and let her down, and she still loves him. He doesn't have to be the Doctor, Savior of Worlds; he can be her best friend instead of just her imaginary one. And that hopefulness and generosity has been so important to me over the last two seasons, even when Moffat has bitten off more than he can really chew in terms of the narrative.
So it's not *just* that it's my Ponds, or that seriously, Rory has to stop it with the dying, or that they have really suffered enough as a family already. It's that if the Ponds don't get a happy ending, I'm afraid that the show will go back to being a show about the Lonely God instead of the madman with a box, and the lesson will be that the Doctor should keep closing himself off, because his story is always a tragedy. And I don't know if I could deal with that, after the comic possibilities of seasons 5 and 6. (Hey, they both end with a marriage.) I'm not saying I would never watch the show again...but I'd probably go back to watching it like I watched season 4 and the specials, without my heart in it.
(Also, I *really* could not deal with the Doctor being a jerk to the next companion because something bad happened to the previous one, if that happened. Been there, done that, still mad about it.)