too tired for a real post
I'm not sure how I felt about that episode *as* an episode - but oh, what a lovely, lovely goodbye scene that was! Which is, let's face it, all I really wanted from this episode after the last go-round with a regeneration, so. I'll certainly need to watch it again, but I sort of felt like it pulled in two directions, and I'm not sure whether I think that was wholly successful or not. What was wonderful was that the Doctor was really just trying to save a town, not a planet or the universe. And there's something lovely
about the way that the man who never stops running settles down, at what he thinks is the end of his life, and stays. The odd thing is that it made all the other stuff - Trenzalore, the Silence, all the big things that have been waiting for Eleven for his whole run - feel oversized and unnecessary at times. I can't decide whether or not I think that was in fact the point. [ETA: What I mean by "the point" - that these things loomed so large in his thoughts, and we were all left to wonder what terrible thing could be coming for him (or what terrible thing he might become, that entire armies would mass themselves against him), and that actually, the thing that was coming was himself, and himself at his very best.]
And I can't write, right now, about Matt Smith - but how lovely, too, to see the young-old man be properly old. Also, making me cry over a Cyberman head while you're wearing age makeup is just completely untoward, Matt. (I was going to write "You stop that," like I often do, only - it's his last episode; he's never going to make me stupid-cry as the Doctor again! Wah.)
Clara should get a look-in here, although my usual problem with her is still in effect: it's so clear how much she loves the Doctor, and when they're in the same space together I love how they interact (especially here, when he's so much older and she's so tender with him), but I still don't know her yet.
And then, AMY! I had idly hoped for a cameo, but didn't expect one - especially not after the other callbacks, like the crack in time, the "drunk giraffe" and the fish fingers and custard. One interesting moment: the narration telling us that the Doctor seemed to have forgotten he'd lived any other life, at more or less the moment that he's doing the drunk giraffe with all of those children. It's not a Henry V-level disconnect - um, Chorus? These soldiers are not really being comforted by this little touch of Harry in the night? - but still, it seems representative of this Doctor in some way. He never talks about Amy, doesn't mourn her ostentatiously in front of the next companion - "who's Amelia?" Clara asks - and it's easy to assume that that means that people don't matter to him - but he wears her glasses and teaches children the dance he did at her wedding, and he comes back for a boy who tells him he'll wait, and his regeneration snack of choice is still fish fingers and custard; and even if it doesn't make it into the official record, it's clear that Amy has changed him, in ways that don't need speech. And "Raggedy man, good night" just broke me, because of "Bye-bye, Pond" and "we're all stories in the end": at the end of a good, long story, it's time to sleep. It was a very good story, my dear Eleven; I don't really want it to end, but I suppose all stories do.
about the way that the man who never stops running settles down, at what he thinks is the end of his life, and stays. The odd thing is that it made all the other stuff - Trenzalore, the Silence, all the big things that have been waiting for Eleven for his whole run - feel oversized and unnecessary at times. I can't decide whether or not I think that was in fact the point. [ETA: What I mean by "the point" - that these things loomed so large in his thoughts, and we were all left to wonder what terrible thing could be coming for him (or what terrible thing he might become, that entire armies would mass themselves against him), and that actually, the thing that was coming was himself, and himself at his very best.]
And I can't write, right now, about Matt Smith - but how lovely, too, to see the young-old man be properly old. Also, making me cry over a Cyberman head while you're wearing age makeup is just completely untoward, Matt. (I was going to write "You stop that," like I often do, only - it's his last episode; he's never going to make me stupid-cry as the Doctor again! Wah.)
Clara should get a look-in here, although my usual problem with her is still in effect: it's so clear how much she loves the Doctor, and when they're in the same space together I love how they interact (especially here, when he's so much older and she's so tender with him), but I still don't know her yet.
And then, AMY! I had idly hoped for a cameo, but didn't expect one - especially not after the other callbacks, like the crack in time, the "drunk giraffe" and the fish fingers and custard. One interesting moment: the narration telling us that the Doctor seemed to have forgotten he'd lived any other life, at more or less the moment that he's doing the drunk giraffe with all of those children. It's not a Henry V-level disconnect - um, Chorus? These soldiers are not really being comforted by this little touch of Harry in the night? - but still, it seems representative of this Doctor in some way. He never talks about Amy, doesn't mourn her ostentatiously in front of the next companion - "who's Amelia?" Clara asks - and it's easy to assume that that means that people don't matter to him - but he wears her glasses and teaches children the dance he did at her wedding, and he comes back for a boy who tells him he'll wait, and his regeneration snack of choice is still fish fingers and custard; and even if it doesn't make it into the official record, it's clear that Amy has changed him, in ways that don't need speech. And "Raggedy man, good night" just broke me, because of "Bye-bye, Pond" and "we're all stories in the end": at the end of a good, long story, it's time to sleep. It was a very good story, my dear Eleven; I don't really want it to end, but I suppose all stories do.