“The Waters of Mars”: It all led to this. A meta made of quotes
Author:alumfelga
Title: “The Waters of Mars”: It all led to this. A meta made of quotes
Notes: Meta. Spoilers for Russell T Davies’ era.
Summary: It's a set of quotes from "The Waters of Mars" in juxtaposition with quotes from various episodes.
I love Russell T Davies’ writing. His stories are character-driven, the events lead to one another, and the 2005-2010 story is so layered and coherent you can write tens of meta essays about it. Mirrors, parallels, foreshadowing, recurring themes, development. This is just an example: a set of quotes from various episodes and from “The Waters of Mars”, showing how deeply rooted the Time Lord Victorious story was in previous episodes. It’s one of my favourite episodes and I’m still in shock how ingenious the plot of “The Waters of Mars” was, making a perfect sense in reference to the Doctor’s whole story yet, for me, completely unexpected. Because it was so bold.
I can't talk about "The Waters of Mars" without that gif. Someone please give David Tennant an award. Or ten.
Look at the two quotes:
ROSE: Is that the end of it, the Time War?
DOCTOR: I'm the onlyone left. I win. How about that? (1x06 “Dalek”)
DOCTOR: For a long time now, I thought I was just a survivor, but I'm not. I'm the winner. That's who I am. The Time Lord Victorious. (4x16 „The Waters of Mars”)
Four years between the episodes, another Doctor on board but here it is. First time he says it, it’s ironic. Second time he says it… This is where Davies’ decision about killing the Time Lords finally gets the point, a new meaning.
Here is another example of words getting a new meaning in a future context. In “New Earth”, the Doctor discovers thousands of people being held in cells and treated as guinea pigs, and demands the whole procedure to be cancelled. He says people’s life on New Earth is worthless if they live because of torture of innocent.
HAME: But who are you to decide that?
DOCTOR: I'm the Doctor. And if you don't like it, if you want to take it to a higher authority, then there isn't one. It stops with me. (2x01 „New Earth”)
At that point, it doesn’t matter that there’s no one to stop him because he’s doing the right thing.
Then comes “The Runaway Bride” and we get the feeling that the Doctor needs someone to stop him for his own good. He’s fighting baddies again. Donna wakes him of his cold anger and saves his life.
DONNA: Just promise me one thing. Find someone.
DOCTOR: I don't need anyone.
DONNA: Yes, you do. Because sometimes, I think you need someone to stop you. (3x01 “The Runaway Bride”)
And finally, there’s the disaster in “Voyage of the Damned” and many, many sad deaths of great people which the Doctor cannot prevent. Apart from the Doctor, only three other people survive and one of them is the selfish, rich snob.
COPPER: Of all the people to survive, he's not the one you would have chosen, is he? But if you could choose, Doctor, if you decide who lives and who dies, that would make you a monster. (4xX “Voyage of the Damned”)
Now let’s go to the famous scene from “The Waters of Mars”:
DOCTOR: That's who I am. The Time Lord Victorious.
ADELAIDE: And there's no one to stop you.
DOCTOR: No.
ADELAIDE: This is wrong, Doctor. I don't care who you are. The Time Lord Victorious is wrong.
DOCTOR: That's for me to decide. Now, you'd better get home. Oh, it's all locked up. You've been away. Still, that's easy.
(He points his sonic screwdriver at the front door, and it opens.)
DOCTOR: All yours.
ADELAIDE: Is there nothing you can't do?
DOCTOR: Not any more. (4x16 „The Waters of Mars”)
It was all there - a consequence of previous episodes. Add all the Doctor’s losses and you get this, the Doctor who breaks the laws of time and saves people even if it’s wrong. He goes so far he gets a new name: Time Lord Victorious. How many times does the main character of the show cross a line there’s no way of coming back from? That’s why it was unexpected to me.
As “The Runaway Bride” has already been mentioned, let me remind you what does Donna say in the same scene but a bit earlier.
DONNA: And it's terrible. That place was flooding and burning and they were dying, and you were stood there like, I don't know, a stranger. And then you made it snow. I mean, you scare me to death. (3x01 “The Runaway bride”)
It’s probably the first episode when the (Tenth?) Doctor scares us, too. But we’ve known him longer than Donna, we’ve seen him helping people and saving lives. We know it’s all because of what he’s recently been through. It’s a one-off, he’s going to heal, isn’t he?
LATIMER: Because it was waiting. And because I was so scared of the Doctor.
JOAN: Why?
LATIMER: Because I've seen him. He's like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun.
DOCTOR [John Smith - my note]: Stop it.
LATIMER: He's ancient and forever. He burns at the centre of time and he can see the turn of the universe.
DOCTOR [John Smith]: Stop it! I said stop it.
LATIMER: And he's wonderful. (3x09 “The Family of Blood”)
One of my favourite quotes, if not the favourite. But that’s not why I quoted the whole thing and not only the first part. Latimer is so scared of the Doctor that he struggles so long before he handles the watch to John Smith, causing more deaths (I’m not blaming him though - the watch was waiting). He’s ‘seen’ him in a way the companions can’t, he’s seen his soul, his essence. When he says he’s scared of him, we should be scared as hell. But it gets softened with Latimer’s last line: He’s wonderful. Latimer’s seen the vengeful god but he believes he’s good. So when we see the Fury of the Time Lord, it is scary but he’s again fighting the bad ones, the Family of Blood doesn’t deserve our pity. We, good people, have nothing to worry about.
Back to “The Waters of Mars” again:
MIA: What is that thing? It's bigger. I mean, it's bigger on the inside. Who the hell are you?
(Mia runs away.) (4x16 “Waters of Mars”)
An untypical reaction after being saved and having a trip in the TARDIS. That’s why I love that scene, and the whole concept, so much: we see the Doctor doing exactly what he does in every single episode but this time it’s all wrong. The Doctor saves someone’s life and they run away from him because they’re scared of him. That’s how wrong he is at the moment. Mia and Yuri can barely bring themselves to even talk to him. Which brings up…
MARTHA: But if Martha Jones became a legend, then that's wrong, because my name isn't important. There's someone else. The man who sent me out there. The man who told me to walk the Earth. And his name is the Doctor. He has saved your lives so many times, and you never even knew he was there. He never stops. He never stays. He never asks to be thanked. But I've seen him. I know him. I love him. And I know what he can do. (3x13 “Last of the Time Lords”)
LAKE: Ladies and gentlemen, I know that man, that Doctor on high. And I know that he has done this deed a thousand times. But not once. No, sir, not once, not ever, has he ever been thanked. But no more. For I say to you, on this Christmas morn, bravo, sir! Bravo! Bravo! Bravo, sir! (4x14 „The Next Doctor”)
(The Tardis materialises on a snow covered Georgian street. The Doctor leads Adelaide, Mia, Yuri and Gadget out.)
DOCTOR: Isn't anyone going to thank me? (4x16 “The Waters of Mars”)
I don’t think it needs much comment. The arrogant Time Lord Victorious. Who has he become?
Let’s go back, once again, to “Last of the Time Lords”:
DOCTOR: But you're changing history. Not just Earth, the entire universe.
MASTER: I'm a Time Lord. I have that right. (3x13 “Last of the Time Lords”)
Recall the Master’s catchphrase from Classic Who: I am the Master and you will obey me. And now we go back to the scene when the Doctor explains why he’s come back to the Bowie Base.
ADELAIDE: But you said we die. For the future, for the human race.
DOCTOR: Yes, because there are laws. There are Laws of Time. Once upon a time there were people in charge of those laws, but they died. They all died. Do you know who that leaves? Me! It's taken me all these years to realise the Laws of Time are mine, and they will obey me! (4x16 “The Waters of Mars”)
It leads us to a short conversation the Doctor and the Master have in “The End of Time”:
DOCTOR: I wonder what I'd be, without you.
MASTER: Yeah. (4x18 “The End of Time Part 2”)
In “The Waters of Mars” the Doctor is one step from becoming the Master.
"The Time Lord Victorious is wrong."
"That's for me to decide."
The last argument: music. When the Doctor stands outside the Base and we hear him remembering:
DOCTOR [memory]: I'm not just a Time Lord, I'm the Last of the Time Lords. They'll never come back. Not now. I've got a Tardis. Same old life, last of the Time Lords. And they died and took it all with them. The walls of reality closed, the worlds were sealed, gone for ever. The Time Lords kept their eye on everything. It's gone now. But they died, the Time Lords! All of them, they died. I'm the last of the Time Lords. (4x16 “The Waters of Mars”),
listen to the music. It’s the old Doctor’s theme, back from series 1. First time we hear it it’s “Rose” and it’s been rearranged few times since then but it’s still the same tune.
Here it is. The Doctor’s darkest hour. Add all the losses, all his pain to the power he possesses and he becomes the Time Lord Victorious. He’s gone too far, too far to come back from. There’s no reset button in Russell T Davies’ world and even though the Doctor very quickly realises what’s he’s done, it has already happened and it’s no long before he has to die. But not without a chance to redeem himself.
All quotes come from http://www.chakoteya.net/.