Gripes about DW S2
Note: this is my Big Gripe Post. It does not represent the entirety of my thoughts on New Season 2. The Big Post of Things I Loved will be along after a while. This is a rant, and as such will be slanted and one-sided. Also it will be disjointed and rambly, as I typed bits and pieces into Notepad over a couple of days, as I had time.
I am avoiding all Season 3 spoilers, so thank you for continuing to cut--it is much appreciated. I ran into the Season 2 casting spoiler early, and was upset about that, but I managed to avoid all plot spoilers and thus enjoyed the season-ender episodes immensely.
Of course "enjoyed" is a relative term. Even with the bizarre way Rose has been written for most of this season, I liked her, and I'm sorry that she's leaving. And we lose not only her, but Jackie, who was awesomely funny, and Mickey, who had probably the most character growth out of anyone on the series, and Pete, who was great dead or alive. Still, it is a show about the Doctor, and not a show about the Companion. I keep telling myself that.
I loved the first season. I spent the second season in bipolar disorder mode, loving it one week, hating it the next. The way the first season was structured, I'm guessing that it was done to pull in new viewers and silence the critics who claim it's only a children's show. "Look! It's not just weird sci-fi! There's a love story!"
And to make a love story believable to old-schoolers, there had to be a reason for the Doctor to latch onto a human, for him to need someone as he's never been shown needing anyone before. So, Gallifrey go boom. Instant angst, PSTD, the Doctor imprints on the first human he significantly interacts with at the beginning of this new regeneration because he iz all alone in the universe, woe! No explanation needed as to why Rose loves the Doctor, because who wouldn't?
And the thing is, it worked. No matter how you try to explain it away, it worked. At least for me, and apparently for a significant number of other viewers.
But Christopher Snuggleston was not staying around for long. That actually worked better. Since we all knew it (thankyouverymuch, BBC), it was a bittersweet romance and we all waited for Rose's inevitable heartbreak.
Because of course it would be kind of ridiculous if she were able to instantly transfer her affections to the new Doctor. No matter if it's the same person in there (and given how the Doctor tends to change personalities when he changes bodies, it could be argued that having a common set of memories doesn't actually equal "being the same person", but that's another discussion), it would take Rose a while to adjust, and whether she could manage to be in love with this one as well would be questionable, let alone how he'd feel about her.
And this would actually be a good thing, because Companions move on, and that's hard to do if the Doctor is your One Twu Wuv. If they worked as "just friends", then the show could regain normality and we wouldn't be disappointed too much when Rose was inevitably replaced, nor would we expect the Doctor to have instant UST with the next Companion, because that would get old really quick and also make you wonder then how, exactly, Rose was different from anybody else that The Oncoming Shag had ever traveled with.
But to be realistic, we'd have to see Rose's realization of the fact that things were different now, that the Doctor still loved her but wasn't in love with her, that she had in fact saved the Doctor in more ways than one and now he didn't need to be so desperately attached to her, and while that might be awful for her, it was good for him. And then she could have made the decision on her own to stay for the "new way to live", or eventually to walk away, although huge sections of fandom would wank that "OMG she's leaving the most exciting life she'll ever have because he doesn't love her! Where is the feminine empowerment! Where is the equality? Why doesn't HE leave?"
But we didn't get heartbreak and grief and exploration of feelings and moments of doubt, even caught on camera in UK-style and not slobbered all over the scenery as in US-style. We got a bit of "he's not the proper Doctor" in "The Christmas Invasion", but that was all over with by the "of course I'm going with you!" end. And then by "New Earth" it was all "Squee! Happy! Twelve!" and I was extremely irritated.
I thought maybe Rose was in denial, and was trying to pretend that everything was the same, but in that case why not show the viewers something to hint at that? We did get a few hints that the Doctor did not feel the same way, but then we also got just as many hints that said that he did, and just wasn't showing it the same way. The whole relationship was played wrong (IMO) throughout the second season, because it was never even acknowledged that things had changed, would have to change.
Reinette told Rose that the Doctor was worth the monsters. Of course, we're talking about a woman whose entire life was warped and stalked by the Krewe of Clockwork, who spent her life committing adultery with one guy while being in love with someone else, all the while checking for secret entrances behind fireplaces and mirrors and waiting for the next tick-tock. Her viewpoint may not have been as impartial as one would wish.
Elton also seemed to be saying that the Doctor was worth the monsters, but to be honest it's a bit hard to figure out what Elton was saying. Also, you have to wonder whether Elton wasn't meant to be seen as extremely self-deluding, given that he and all his friends would have been much better off if they had never heard of the Doctor. And it's something to think about that Elton never connected the Doctor with the night his mother died. You'd think that would be burned into his mind. The only way it wouldn't is if he had erased that memory, denied it, or made a different connection. Instead of thinking, "The Doctor is here, and my mother died," maybe he was thinking, "My mother died, but the Doctor saved me when she couldn't." And the thing is, I couldn't tell you which is the correct viewpoint.
Sarah Jane told us that the Doctor leaves without a second thought. She seemed to think that it was worthwhile traveling with the Doctor, but the audience certainly gets the opinion that it left a lifelong impression on her, and maybe not all completely for the good.
Over and over people say that it's worth it, but the underlying message seems to be that they're lying to themselves, that it's not worth it in the long run, that if the Doctor doesn't manage to get you killed ("Sorry. I'm so sorry.") or turned into a paving slab, he'll eventually leave you anyway. And if that wasn't the message that they wanted Rose to learn, then it was bad writing to keep sending it to the viewers at home. All the "everything has its time, and everything ends"--what was it all about, anyway? Everything else ends, but I'll always stay with you, Doctor. Yeah.
So in the end, Rose doesn't let go willingly, realizing that she's got the one thing she always wanted and that if she doesn't grab it now, she'll never be able to. She doesn't get the chance to make the choice on her own and grow up a little bit and feel like she's killed a little bit of her dreamer-self, both at once. She's dragged off kicking and screaming. It feels like a betrayal of the character.
But if you think about it, there's only basically three ways that she could leave, given the relationship that has been established. Not that of a regular Companion, just out for fun or until something better comes along or got here by accident and will go home as soon as possible, but that of someone who is in love, whether or not that love is returned. (This concept came from someone in the who_daily community, but these words are mine, so if anything doesn't make sense, it's my fault.)
--She could have made the choice to walk away willingly. She could have decided that running around laughing at death and destruction, or wandering in, causing massive confusion, and swanning off, weren't very responsible ways to behave, and that she needed to grow up. She could have decided that she didn't want to lose her mum and her long-lost dream dad forever, and she didn't want to take the chance of being abandoned one day on the Doctor's whim, and that maybe a boring life with your dependable family who love you is preferable to an exciting and dangerous life with someone who may or may not love you but who will certainly never love you in the way you love them.
I understand that that is not everyone's point of view, but, most of the time at least, it's mine. It's fine to go sporting off round the universe, cavorting through time and space, as long as you can always pop back to bring the washing home, but when the separation is going to be permanent, then it's time for some serious re-thinking of priorities.
The problem is that that would be a denial of everything the scripts were saying. If Rose decided that the Doctor wasn't worth the monsters, then what does that say about Reinette and Elton and all the others who thought that he was? And if Rose, who the audience is supposed to identify with, decides that "real life" is better than the Doctor, then does the audience all turn off the TV and go get real lives, leaving the ratings to tank? (Don't get me started about the repeated bashing in both seasons of TV-watching and fans and such. Tip for writers? Don't knock the people keeping you employed.)
--The Doctor could kick her out or abandon her. However, it's hard to see how this would work, given all the trouble they went to to establish that the Doctor is holding onto Rose like a security blanket.
(And the Doctor, who was like nothing else this season so much as a small child, constantly astonished and impressed and wondering, and taking whatever he wanted and doing whatever he wanted, lecturing the little white flower that just because it was a lonely child, it couldn't take another lonely child away from her family for its own benefit...this, Alanis, is irony.)
--She could have been killed. This would have led to even more angst on the Doctor's part, and it seems like they're trying to portray that he's gradually learning to deal with the events of the Time War, so I don't think they would saddle him with this so soon afterwards. Also, it would be really nice if we could see Rose and Jack together again, although at this point it doesn't look likely.
So they wrote themselves into a corner, and the only way for Rose to go out was protesting. This allows for Doctor-angst, but not to an unbearable degree, since he knows she's still alive with a good job and an intact family. It doesn't allow for any character growth for Rose, but that was a missed opportunity since the beginning of the second season.
The just really huge awesomely bad writing problem is that they're telling us one thing--"Rose/Doctor are luv!" "The Doctor is worth the monsters!" "The Doctor is God!" "The Doctor will save us all!" but they're showing us something completely different--The Doctor doesn't love Rose, not the way he used to, not the way she wants him to, although I won't argue that Ten certainly had very strong feelings for Rose; the Doctor may or may not be worth the monsters; the Doctor is not God and cannot save everyone, and it's dangerous when he thinks he is and can. And the big gap between the words and the reality leads to certain expectations, plot-wise, which are then completely ignored and unmet. And that's my biggest gripe this season.
I am avoiding all Season 3 spoilers, so thank you for continuing to cut--it is much appreciated. I ran into the Season 2 casting spoiler early, and was upset about that, but I managed to avoid all plot spoilers and thus enjoyed the season-ender episodes immensely.
Of course "enjoyed" is a relative term. Even with the bizarre way Rose has been written for most of this season, I liked her, and I'm sorry that she's leaving. And we lose not only her, but Jackie, who was awesomely funny, and Mickey, who had probably the most character growth out of anyone on the series, and Pete, who was great dead or alive. Still, it is a show about the Doctor, and not a show about the Companion. I keep telling myself that.
I loved the first season. I spent the second season in bipolar disorder mode, loving it one week, hating it the next. The way the first season was structured, I'm guessing that it was done to pull in new viewers and silence the critics who claim it's only a children's show. "Look! It's not just weird sci-fi! There's a love story!"
And to make a love story believable to old-schoolers, there had to be a reason for the Doctor to latch onto a human, for him to need someone as he's never been shown needing anyone before. So, Gallifrey go boom. Instant angst, PSTD, the Doctor imprints on the first human he significantly interacts with at the beginning of this new regeneration because he iz all alone in the universe, woe! No explanation needed as to why Rose loves the Doctor, because who wouldn't?
And the thing is, it worked. No matter how you try to explain it away, it worked. At least for me, and apparently for a significant number of other viewers.
But Christopher Snuggleston was not staying around for long. That actually worked better. Since we all knew it (thankyouverymuch, BBC), it was a bittersweet romance and we all waited for Rose's inevitable heartbreak.
Because of course it would be kind of ridiculous if she were able to instantly transfer her affections to the new Doctor. No matter if it's the same person in there (and given how the Doctor tends to change personalities when he changes bodies, it could be argued that having a common set of memories doesn't actually equal "being the same person", but that's another discussion), it would take Rose a while to adjust, and whether she could manage to be in love with this one as well would be questionable, let alone how he'd feel about her.
And this would actually be a good thing, because Companions move on, and that's hard to do if the Doctor is your One Twu Wuv. If they worked as "just friends", then the show could regain normality and we wouldn't be disappointed too much when Rose was inevitably replaced, nor would we expect the Doctor to have instant UST with the next Companion, because that would get old really quick and also make you wonder then how, exactly, Rose was different from anybody else that The Oncoming Shag had ever traveled with.
But to be realistic, we'd have to see Rose's realization of the fact that things were different now, that the Doctor still loved her but wasn't in love with her, that she had in fact saved the Doctor in more ways than one and now he didn't need to be so desperately attached to her, and while that might be awful for her, it was good for him. And then she could have made the decision on her own to stay for the "new way to live", or eventually to walk away, although huge sections of fandom would wank that "OMG she's leaving the most exciting life she'll ever have because he doesn't love her! Where is the feminine empowerment! Where is the equality? Why doesn't HE leave?"
But we didn't get heartbreak and grief and exploration of feelings and moments of doubt, even caught on camera in UK-style and not slobbered all over the scenery as in US-style. We got a bit of "he's not the proper Doctor" in "The Christmas Invasion", but that was all over with by the "of course I'm going with you!" end. And then by "New Earth" it was all "Squee! Happy! Twelve!" and I was extremely irritated.
I thought maybe Rose was in denial, and was trying to pretend that everything was the same, but in that case why not show the viewers something to hint at that? We did get a few hints that the Doctor did not feel the same way, but then we also got just as many hints that said that he did, and just wasn't showing it the same way. The whole relationship was played wrong (IMO) throughout the second season, because it was never even acknowledged that things had changed, would have to change.
Reinette told Rose that the Doctor was worth the monsters. Of course, we're talking about a woman whose entire life was warped and stalked by the Krewe of Clockwork, who spent her life committing adultery with one guy while being in love with someone else, all the while checking for secret entrances behind fireplaces and mirrors and waiting for the next tick-tock. Her viewpoint may not have been as impartial as one would wish.
Elton also seemed to be saying that the Doctor was worth the monsters, but to be honest it's a bit hard to figure out what Elton was saying. Also, you have to wonder whether Elton wasn't meant to be seen as extremely self-deluding, given that he and all his friends would have been much better off if they had never heard of the Doctor. And it's something to think about that Elton never connected the Doctor with the night his mother died. You'd think that would be burned into his mind. The only way it wouldn't is if he had erased that memory, denied it, or made a different connection. Instead of thinking, "The Doctor is here, and my mother died," maybe he was thinking, "My mother died, but the Doctor saved me when she couldn't." And the thing is, I couldn't tell you which is the correct viewpoint.
Sarah Jane told us that the Doctor leaves without a second thought. She seemed to think that it was worthwhile traveling with the Doctor, but the audience certainly gets the opinion that it left a lifelong impression on her, and maybe not all completely for the good.
Over and over people say that it's worth it, but the underlying message seems to be that they're lying to themselves, that it's not worth it in the long run, that if the Doctor doesn't manage to get you killed ("Sorry. I'm so sorry.") or turned into a paving slab, he'll eventually leave you anyway. And if that wasn't the message that they wanted Rose to learn, then it was bad writing to keep sending it to the viewers at home. All the "everything has its time, and everything ends"--what was it all about, anyway? Everything else ends, but I'll always stay with you, Doctor. Yeah.
So in the end, Rose doesn't let go willingly, realizing that she's got the one thing she always wanted and that if she doesn't grab it now, she'll never be able to. She doesn't get the chance to make the choice on her own and grow up a little bit and feel like she's killed a little bit of her dreamer-self, both at once. She's dragged off kicking and screaming. It feels like a betrayal of the character.
But if you think about it, there's only basically three ways that she could leave, given the relationship that has been established. Not that of a regular Companion, just out for fun or until something better comes along or got here by accident and will go home as soon as possible, but that of someone who is in love, whether or not that love is returned. (This concept came from someone in the who_daily community, but these words are mine, so if anything doesn't make sense, it's my fault.)
--She could have made the choice to walk away willingly. She could have decided that running around laughing at death and destruction, or wandering in, causing massive confusion, and swanning off, weren't very responsible ways to behave, and that she needed to grow up. She could have decided that she didn't want to lose her mum and her long-lost dream dad forever, and she didn't want to take the chance of being abandoned one day on the Doctor's whim, and that maybe a boring life with your dependable family who love you is preferable to an exciting and dangerous life with someone who may or may not love you but who will certainly never love you in the way you love them.
I understand that that is not everyone's point of view, but, most of the time at least, it's mine. It's fine to go sporting off round the universe, cavorting through time and space, as long as you can always pop back to bring the washing home, but when the separation is going to be permanent, then it's time for some serious re-thinking of priorities.
The problem is that that would be a denial of everything the scripts were saying. If Rose decided that the Doctor wasn't worth the monsters, then what does that say about Reinette and Elton and all the others who thought that he was? And if Rose, who the audience is supposed to identify with, decides that "real life" is better than the Doctor, then does the audience all turn off the TV and go get real lives, leaving the ratings to tank? (Don't get me started about the repeated bashing in both seasons of TV-watching and fans and such. Tip for writers? Don't knock the people keeping you employed.)
--The Doctor could kick her out or abandon her. However, it's hard to see how this would work, given all the trouble they went to to establish that the Doctor is holding onto Rose like a security blanket.
(And the Doctor, who was like nothing else this season so much as a small child, constantly astonished and impressed and wondering, and taking whatever he wanted and doing whatever he wanted, lecturing the little white flower that just because it was a lonely child, it couldn't take another lonely child away from her family for its own benefit...this, Alanis, is irony.)
--She could have been killed. This would have led to even more angst on the Doctor's part, and it seems like they're trying to portray that he's gradually learning to deal with the events of the Time War, so I don't think they would saddle him with this so soon afterwards. Also, it would be really nice if we could see Rose and Jack together again, although at this point it doesn't look likely.
So they wrote themselves into a corner, and the only way for Rose to go out was protesting. This allows for Doctor-angst, but not to an unbearable degree, since he knows she's still alive with a good job and an intact family. It doesn't allow for any character growth for Rose, but that was a missed opportunity since the beginning of the second season.
The just really huge awesomely bad writing problem is that they're telling us one thing--"Rose/Doctor are luv!" "The Doctor is worth the monsters!" "The Doctor is God!" "The Doctor will save us all!" but they're showing us something completely different--The Doctor doesn't love Rose, not the way he used to, not the way she wants him to, although I won't argue that Ten certainly had very strong feelings for Rose; the Doctor may or may not be worth the monsters; the Doctor is not God and cannot save everyone, and it's dangerous when he thinks he is and can. And the big gap between the words and the reality leads to certain expectations, plot-wise, which are then completely ignored and unmet. And that's my biggest gripe this season.