I also found the Doctor's actions creepy in the way he used Abigail. I get the feeling that he knew she was dying and let her out with the expectation that she and Kazran would fall in love. Eleven does seem to have his dark side, doesn't he?
Yeah, true, if you dig into it this wasn't an *entirely* sweet'n'fuzzy happy-fest in terms of Eleven's behavior and motivations . . . but he was still presented in a relatively positive light here, which is interesting (or twisted, depending on your POV).
I don't doubt that Kazran's life was better with Abigail - better to have loved and lost, etc. - but the point is he doesn't have the right to completely rewrite a person's childhood, even if it's for the better.
. . .the point is he doesn't have the right to completely rewrite a person's childhood, even if it's for the better.
Oh, yeah, I totally agree. But that's not made clear in "Carol" the way it was in "Errors," or even WoM. Which is why I think the happy-fluff aspect of "Carol" is a bit warped at its heart.
I think Eleven has a lot of Dark!Doc potential, definitely, but he's not always presented in such a way that I think we're supposed to read his actions as unnerving. (Unlike, say, Dark!Ten in WoM, where we very clearly *were* supposed to see him falling from grace as he went off the rails, if that isn't too mixed a metaphor.)
I haven't seen much DW lately, so while I find your meta on the other eps and other stories interesting, I can't comment on that. But! I did think it was well written and interesting... Sometimes the cleverness just took my breath away, such as the bit where Eleven was the ghost of Christmas Future, and I thought he was talking to the mature Kazran and in fact he was talking to the child version. Gobsmacking.
Oh, yes, Moffat *is* a superlatively clever writer. It's both his strength (as you say, the "Christmas Future" scene was excellent) and his downfall (I still think "Jekyll," while otherwise brilliant, tried to squeeze too many twists into its ending).
Innnnteresting. I've read Continuity Errors, but I didn't see the connection until now.
The fact that Abigail died is one of the biggest plot holes there is - we know that the Doctor knows plenty of places where she probably could have been cured. (The other massive plot hole was "why not put everyone in the TARDIS and/or tow it to save them?")
So even when Moffat's handwaving with the one-shark open sleigh, I thought it was a bit much that Abigail had to die.
Oh, yeah, I didn't go into the plot holes or logical fallacies as much in this post -- I kind of consider them a given in a DW story, anymore. But you're absolutely right, Abigail's oh-so-tragic death seems utterly unnecessary and pointless from the Watsonian POV; if you're going all Doyleist, though, it was "needed" for the story to tick along properly . . . which could be considered a flaw in the structure of the whole thing, really. One does get tired of the female-romantic-interest-must-die-tragically-for-dramatic-purposes trope. And we didn't even get lip service to Abigail's death being some sort of fixed point in which Eleven couldn't interfere directly, or other such hand-waving.
OTOH, there was *some* one-line comment from Eleven that I didn't quite catch, thanks to Smith's rapid-fire delivery, about why he couldn't use to TARDIS to save the ship (or at least its passengers), so at least that was addressed.
(FWIW, that Martin Freeman icon makes me smile every time I see it; so adorable!) XD
It's a yankable icon, if you want it. Begs for some caption, doesn't it?
And we didn't even get lip service to Abigail's death being some sort of fixed point in which Eleven couldn't interfere directly, or other such hand-waving.
It's a yankable icon, if you want it. Begs for some caption, doesn't it?
Yeah, though I can't think of a good caption ATM.
I know. It was... strange.
Yes and no -- it made absolute *emotional*-narrative sense for her to die, it just made no *rational* sense. Hm! I believe that's why this felt like an RTD special. He was always writing stuff that was WTF?? from a logic standpoint, but which struck dead-on emotional chords. Moffat rarely pulls that stunt (or at least not so blatantly), but he did it here. Huh. How about that.
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Oh, yeah, I totally agree. But that's not made clear in "Carol" the way it was in "Errors," or even WoM. Which is why I think the happy-fluff aspect of "Carol" is a bit warped at its heart.
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Which is creepy in and of itself, really . . .
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The fact that Abigail died is one of the biggest plot holes there is - we know that the Doctor knows plenty of places where she probably could have been cured. (The other massive plot hole was "why not put everyone in the TARDIS and/or tow it to save them?")
So even when Moffat's handwaving with the one-shark open sleigh, I thought it was a bit much that Abigail had to die.
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OTOH, there was *some* one-line comment from Eleven that I didn't quite catch, thanks to Smith's rapid-fire delivery, about why he couldn't use to TARDIS to save the ship (or at least its passengers), so at least that was addressed.
(FWIW, that Martin Freeman icon makes me smile every time I see it; so adorable!) XD
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And we didn't even get lip service to Abigail's death being some sort of fixed point in which Eleven couldn't interfere directly, or other such hand-waving.
I know. It was... strange.
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Yeah, though I can't think of a good caption ATM.
I know. It was... strange.
Yes and no -- it made absolute *emotional*-narrative sense for her to die, it just made no *rational* sense. Hm! I believe that's why this felt like an RTD special. He was always writing stuff that was WTF?? from a logic standpoint, but which struck dead-on emotional chords. Moffat rarely pulls that stunt (or at least not so blatantly), but he did it here. Huh. How about that.
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