Doctor Who: The Doctor's Wife

[beccatoria]

That was so much better than last week's where I was looking at the clock wondering how much longer was to go, while this week I was looking at the clock in horror that there was only that much to go

Comments

[mymatedave]

I watched it earlier and I think the problems that you're seeing are those of a Neil Gaiman story not only stuck inside a 44 minute show, but one that was originally slated to be a season finale.

Neil Gaiman's inclusion also really brings home the fact that under the Moff's leadership, Doctor Who is a fairy tale and as Neil Gaiman once said, "Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."

[beccatoria]

Interesting - I don't think I'd want a season finale written by someone other than Moffat under his own showrunning tenure, but I do think that yes, this kind of episode would have made a great two-part finale.

And the quote about fairy tales is very apt: I thought it was GK Chesterton who originally said it? But it's definitely very Gaiman.

[dementedsiren]

Yes to this reaction. I loved the episode. I loved the concept. I loved the fact that Gaiman let characters ask questions viewers may wonder and never hear ("Doctor, do you have a room?" heh).

At the end of I was physically crying - I was sad, I followed the arc to the end. But I did not feel catharsis. It skipped a bit, like the emotional point was reached too late, without enough before it to make it hit as deep as it could, without enough after to fully bring it home or resolve it. And that is appropriate, to a certain extent, because that must be how the Doctor and Idris!Tardis were feeling, but as a viewer it did seem there needed to be a bit more.

I think what's most heartbreaking for me is that there was so much potential - and we know it's only for a limited period, and we know we'll never see it. It puts us as a mirror to the Doctor's sadness, which makes the point quite well, but we don't get to fully explore it because the show didn't fully explore it.

Aaaaaand I'm talking in circles now, aren't I...hm.

[beccatoria]

Thanks for your comment - I'm really glad that you understood what I was talking about. Like you say, in some ways I feel I'm being too unkind because the feeling it leaves us with is probably very similar to that of the Doctor, but then, yes, we desperately want it to be explored and feel sad it wasn't.

I think that's why I didn't particularly want or need more of any particular aspect, or even really, more emo, despite my tag - I wanted more...quiet moments. Or just more of the moments like the Doctor and TARDIS!Idris looking over the graveyard. I think I just needed more, not even different?

[lady_with_cats]

I agree with wanting more moments to just rest on the implications of what was happening, especially when they were looking out on the graveyard. But then Idris did seem much more disturbed than the Doctor was.

As for the Doctor not being angry about the devoured Timelords, I actually thought he really wanted to be. But he had to make sure the weren't killed before Idris could go back into the TARDIS, and so he had to keep talking to the House (all that clapping and so forth). And then... I think he was too overwrought to bother.

[beccatoria]

I think it was right that Idris was more disturbed than the Doctor? But I do think that it could have been used as a jumping off point for both of them to bond more over being the lasts of their kinds? Although, as chaila43 says below, to some degree, they can never dwell on that forever - it's not who they are - there is a reason beyond that that they are always running, but I just wanted...more of those moments maybe. The more I try to define it, the more I fail to do so because it's a minor thing in many ways. I just wanted...a few more moments where the quiet realisation drops before they move on. There just weren't quite enough

[anonymous]

Great episode really enjoyed. Just the right mix between wackyness and emotional moments.

I think the 10% missing for me though was dangling the presospect of an old tadis control room and it turning out to be one from about 2 years ago. Would love to have seen one from the 80's 70's or 60's. The last 2 are so similar its hard to get excited.

I too thought Idris was a blokes name. I gues they took it from the star gazing giant of mythology plus well it kinda sounds like tardis.

[beccatoria]

Yeah I really enjoyed it on the whole too, though I didn't have the same reaction to you about the console room. I think they wanted one that more viewers would recognise as being a genuine one they'd seen as the main console room before rather than one that only older viewers of the classic era would recognise, but even aside from that (cus it's not a super important difference), they probably did it for budget reasons. This episode was originally supposed to be in S5 instead of The Lodger, but they didn't have enough money for it because it was quite a big budget episode, and they ended up having to film The Lodger because it was really cheap instead. They already had to construct the corridors for this episode, I think they probably couldn't have afforded to rebuild one of the old sets. :(

Idris is a boy's name in Welsh, certainly. I'm not sure about other languages. I think that Gaiman probably knows that, even, and picked it for a combination of oddness and the fact it sounds like "TARDIS".

[asta77]

This was my favorite episode of the season thus far (last weeks ep played like a rejected PotC script), but, I agree, it felt like it could have used another ten minutes. I thought the Amy/Rory scenes were important, not just for them, but to demonstrate the urgency of the Doctor and Idris returning to the ship. But, like you, I wanted to see more of the other couple. It's like, I know we'll get to see more of Amy and Rory together, but this is it for the Doctor and TARDIS in human form

[beccatoria]

Oh god, last week's episode was a bit dire, wasn't it? I also agree, the Amy/Rory stuff was really important to the overall structure of the episode, but yeah, the problem is not resenting those scenes even as they fulfill a function.

I think there were two ways they could have gone with the lying bit. I think either they could have underplayed it - like exhaustion, he's been tricked and lied to and had hope snatched from him so many times, it just crushes him and the anger is very powerful but very muted and he just pulls himself together and moves on, and it's through that that the relationship with Idris is more powerful because it's this wonderful gift of a thing in the middle of such an anhedonic experience? Or they could have made more of his anger.

I'm not sure I'm willing to say that I think Tennant would have done better, because I still have residual Tennat-era twitching that makes me want to reject that immediately! I think for me it was more the lack of aftermath than the execution in the moment, but I do get