also, so as not to keep clogging up other people's comment threads

[tempestsarekind]

I've thought about this quite a bit in the last few days (because my brain has totally gone on vacation from school, despite the batch of papers that needs grading), and basically, it boils down to this:

Comments

[stoplookingup]

Yes yes yes yes yes. And to all the fans who say, but the Doctor's always been like that -- your answer is perfect. In this iteration of DW, we see that he's NOT always like that. There are times when he's quite insightful and thoughtful, and you don't get the sense that when he's selfish and thoughtless, he's alien. You get the sense that it's just forced drama, designed to make the series edgier by creating conflict (which ends up being more irritating and unlikable than edgy). Or worse, just uneven writing.

I can't tell you how many times the exact thoughts you express have been in my mind -- sometimes forcing me to write fic that addresses them. And judging from a lot of other people's fics, you and I aren't the only ones.

[tempestsarekind]

Honestly, I think it's uneven writing more than anything else. One second he's carrying Martha through the hospital and talking to her sweetly even though she can't hear him, and then other times he doesn't even stop to think about whether she's okay. I might even be less upset if I got the sense that the Doctor had done something wrong, that he knew he'd done something wrong, and we were *meant* to know he'd done something wrong. At least then there might be some resolution coming down the pike. But instead I get the sense that the Cardiff team thinks that the Doctor behaved as well to her as one could expect, and the only bad thing is that Martha happened to meet the Doctor at a time when he couldn't return her romantic feelings for him. And that's *so* not what I even care about

[stoplookingup]

Uneven writing, yes, but I think at least semi-intentionally uneven. I think the writers set out with two goals that are somewhat in conflict: First, to create sexy, irresistible Doctor -- a seductive figure who knows how to connect with people and draw them in. Second, to create dark, edgy, alone, last of his kind Doctor -- a closed-off, damaged figure who doesn't let people in. There's no sense of evolution from one to the other. I think maybe we're meant to believe that he's really the latter, but the loneliness is killing him, so he resorts to being the former in order to fill that empty hole inside. (That's me, handwaving an explanation.)

[tempestsarekind]

I hadn't really thought of it that way, but that makes a lot of sense. They're trying to do "new and flirty" and "broken and lonely" at the same time--but it starts to feel like they don't *really* want to own up to "broken and lonely," and actually have some kind of recognition of his behavior. They have the Doctor treat people in disturbing ways (like with Jack), but then they back off of it with an offhand invitation and then distract us with "hey look Face of Boe!"

There might only be so long you could watch the show if they started taking this conflict in the Doctor seriously, at least not without being really depressed, but then there would be the possibility of having him move *out* of it, instead of just oscillating wildly between the two. I don't know, maybe they will in S4.

[stoplookingup]

The lunatic optimist in my head thinks maybe they will finally let the Doctor have his epiphany that he is NOT ALONE when he is so obviously surrounded by people who love him. Then Rusty comes out with a new quote that leaves me bloody and battered and far more realistic.

[tempestsarekind]

If only he would stop talking, for just a little while. He is totally sucking all of the optimism out of the room!