(Untitled)

[sensiblecat]

A friend writes:

I was reading a lovely book entitled, "Master Class In Fiction Writing" by Adam Sexton.

This book draws on the very essences of storytelling, which naturally will appeal to me, by illuminating examples from classic works. And I loved how the author illustrates the exact problem with RTD's storyline as a whole and coherent

Comments

[aibhinn]

You know, I still haven't watched EoT, though I've gone out of my way to spoil myself in an attempt to want to watch it. Usually that works; I find out what happened, and then I'm really excited to actually see it on the screen. (Weird, I know, but you already know I'm a contrary sort of person.)

I have no desire to watch EoT. In fact, I didn't even watch WoM until Christmas Eve. And I think this is exactly the problem:

I get the impression that it was 10.5's story that RTD wanted to tell by that stage - the simple, human one. He was bored by the magnitude of the issues he'd set up and no wonder - they'd all been rehashed ad nauseum

[sensiblecat]

Thank you. You've not been too well have you - Meuniere's Disease? I'm glad you're easing back to work, anyway.

BTW the kids wrap up in that lovely blanket you made for us on the sofa every night. I'm going to have to watch out for it when they leave for college!

Concerning DW, I really wouldn't bother with EoT. Minus the hype we had over here, I wouldn't have done either. WoM was in many ways the logical end of Ten's story.

I think Moff really wants to write the original Doctor's story. He'll do a good job and it'll be a blast to watch. Interesting that they seem to be pushing it harder to America than here. It makes sense. It'll work better retooled than up the cul-de-sac RTD drove it into. I suspect RTD just never in his wildest dreams expected it to run much more than two series, and like the Doctor, he makes stuff up as he goes along (He denies that, of course, but if it wasn't true there wouldn't be so many loose ends hanging).

[scarfman]

So, while the last stand with WIlf is a beautiful scene, and the acting is fantastically good, in the end it just doesn't feel in character. I don't feel that the Doctor could stand up to Rassilon only to pout and act out when he can't hang onto his particular body. It's just too small, too human.
I've been saying since Christmas that his reaction to the prospect of regenerating is out of character. Since New Year's about the temper tantrum in front of Wilf, too, which I've taken a potshot at explaining in-text. Reading this, it offers a needed out-text explanation more in depth than Rusty wants to say goodbye.
According to cut dialog from Christmas Invasion, the Doctor's tenth personality is supposed to have got his accent from Rose. In the wake of Doomsday I posited that he must have picked up his emo-of-a-nineteen-year-old from her too. To justify all this in-text, perhaps you could argue that he picked up the human perspective from Rose at the same time. So that'll be why he seemed to believe that he could have forever with Rose

[parrot_knight]

The deletion of the dialogue about the Doctor's accent being derived from Rose is a sign that the direction of the Doctor/Rose relationship was undecided at the start of making the 2006 season; perhaps if Rose had left a few episodes in as supposedly intended she would have been more of a mother figure to the tenth Doctor. Alternatively, Russell was working so fast that he didn't realise the problems in the contradiction of Rose being both a mother and lover figure.

[sensiblecat]

I never saw Rose as a mother figure. He had Jackie for that. He thrived, for a while, on having a family to relate to. But I do agree that S2 was inconsistent - he spent the first half pushing Rose away and the second head over heels in love with her, and the transition wasn't explained at all. And I agree that Rusty writes from the hip and ends up writing himself into corners - it's very unprofessional.

[parrot_knight]

I don't see Rose as a mother figurer either - the deleted lines would only have muddied the waters had they stayed in.

[azalaisdep]

We get the odd attitude to regeneration, for example. Tragic Doctor reacting to it as death, when in fact it's something quite different. Regeneration is pushed to the absolute limit - it happens agonizingly slowly with a huge amount of rage against the dying of the light. That's because, deep down, The Doctor as conceived by RTD has become human, and so he's not dreading a regeneration, he's dreading the end that death is to a human being.

Yes, yes, yes. I was torn throughout EoT between feeling that the Doctor/Wilf bits were, as you say, beautifully written (and perfectly pitched for DT and BC) and fantastically acted by the both of them, and thinking 'except actually, that's wrong. That's how *humans* feel, about death. The Doctor's not human, and he's not going to die!' and getting frustrated that RTD seemed to be writing his own/DT's feelings about the role into the Doctor, which would have been emotionally very satisfying but didn't quite make sense...

By this time, Doctor as tragic hero had turned out to be such a success

[sensiblecat]

It could have been a beautiful scene, particularly if the Master had been alive for long enough to take part in it. Tragic, yes, but not in a mawkish, sentimental way. And then a quiet, dignified embrace of regeneration, with or without Wilf, accepting that the Time War had to be laid aside at last, that life goes on. To me, that would have been much more consistent with the spirit of a Time Lord at his best, and a telling contrast to the monsters that his people had become. It could have included an acknowledgement of the White Lady too, maybe Wilf saying, "Did you know her?" and the Doctor replying, "She's everyone who ever inspired me to do the right thing - Susan, Romana, my mum...even you, Wilf."

[caz963]

One of the things that most upsets me about Ten's departure is that he never found peace. He wasn't ready to go and he went out fighting it, unlike Nine.

I, too was rather surprised by the likening of regeneration to death. Surely the whole part of the process is to allow the character to remain with us, just in another form. And given that Tennant's Who fanboyishness has meant that he's been able to throw in touches here and there of almost all the other nine Doctors, the claim that a "new man goes sauntering away" makes even less sense.

While I accept that many found the long goodbye to be makwish and self-indulgent, personally, I needed it. Because of the nature of regeneration, we don't get to 'mourn' the departing Doctor before BAM! there's a new kid on the block - so for me, that sequence was my opportunity to do that.

[sensiblecat]

There's a part of me wants to believe that somehow, in the middle of that explosion, he merged with his other self and found peace with Rose. Because I feel that in the end, Nine and Ten represented a part of the Doctor that had to be purged, and burnt away - the part that longs to be human. In the end, no matter how much he wants it, the Doctor isn't human and without a Time Lord's discipline, authority and ability to distance himself from events, he can't survive and stay sane

[np_complete]

As always, a convincing analysis and an excellent essay.