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selenakGentle readers, a plea first: I know I have several people in my circle/on my flist who can’t stand the Tenth Doctor. Now, I have my share of characters whom I dislike. And sometimes it feels very therapeutic to list all the reasons why. I understand the urge completely. However, there is a time and a place for such exercises. Comments to a journal entry where I list my some of my favourite Tenth Doctor moments aren’t one of them.
Disclaimer the second: I’m referring to David Tennant’s Doctor as the Tenth Doctor in this post not because I’m discounting John Hurt’s Doctor, whom I love, but because it makes my fannish life easier to stick with the old numeration.
„Tooth and Claw“ as well as „Girl in the Fireplace“: the Doctor sincerely admiring the beauty of the respective monsters of the episodes (i.e. the werewolf and the automatons respectively). He occasionally does that in other regenerations as well, but nonetheless it strikes as a particular Ten thing to do
„School Reunion“: The Doctor meets Sarah Jane Smith again. All the scenes between Ten and Sarah Jane are golden, and it’s hard to pick just one, but for the purpose of this exercise, I’ll settle on the very first encounter (when Sarah Jane doesn’t yet know it’s him), both because it’s such a great mirror image/counter point to their first meeting back when he was Three and got introduced as John Smith as well to young investigative journalist Sarah Jane, and because it’s one of those perfect union moments between actor and character. The joy of that moment is both David Tennant, fanboy extraordinaire, meeting Lis Sladen and having the chance to play the Doctor next to the one and only Sarah Jane, and the Doctor re-encountering a dearly loved friend whom he hasn’t seen for several lifetimes.
Same episode: „I’m so old now. I used to have so much mercy.“ That conversation between the Doctor and ASH’s fake headmaster by the swimming pool is a favourite for various reasons, from the shallow (it’s slashy) to the characterisation stuff (the Doctor’s darker side)
„The Runaway Bride“: as long time readers will know, I adore the Doctor & Donna combination. Donna is my favourite Tenth Doctor era Companion. She won over most of fandom in the fourth New Who season, but back when she first showed up, in the Christmas Special The Runaway Bride, there was a lot of resentment voiced. I can pin point the scene where I first thought „these two could be great together“ and „awesome actor chemistry“ and „awesome scene for both characters“, though, and it comes right after the introduction chase sequence and ensueing insanity, when the Doctor and Donna are on the rooftop, sitting together. They’re both worn out from preceding events, plus the Doctor is in post-Rose doldrums, but he’s talking to Donna, not having a one sided expositionary conversation, replying to what she says and to her situation, not simply to the need to keep an eye on her due to the robot Santas. (There’s also still some mutual ribbing, which foreshadows the bantery relationship they will later have. ) Tied with this, but in a similar vein: during the big reveal scene, the Doctor has figured out what Lance has done and why before it gets spelled out, and he immediately realises the emotional implication this will have to Donna and acts accordingly, in addition to engineering their escape.
One more Runaway Bride moment: the first time Gallifrey is named in the New Who era, when the Doctor kills the Empress and her children. While yes, it was this or letting them overrun and consume Earth, it’s also one of the darker Doctor moments, highlighted later by Donna naming it as the reason why she doesn’t accept his offer to travel together. („You just stood there.“) It’s definitely The-Doctor-as-Timelord in a chilling vein (which makes it so apropos that this is the first time anyone on New Who says „Gallifrey“ out loud.
„Gridlock“: Nurse Hame, re: why she and the Face of Boe stuck around on New Earth: „We didn’t have a choice.“ The Doctor: „Yes, you did.“
This is such a lovely quiet scene between them, and it says so much. It depends on continuity – when last we’ve seen her, Hame had been part of an order which exploited and experimented, something the head of said order then tried to justify with not having a choice, which the Doctor soundly rejected. Whereas here, „yes, you did“ means that the Doctor sees Hame has made another choice since – helping people, as another regeneration would put it, „without witness, without reward“. He understands and honors that.
Gridlock is both one of my favourite RTD written and one of my favourite DW episodes anyway, for very many reasons. Now, our Rusty often gets accused, and not without justification, of overplaying his hand with the emotions and the sledgehammer method of making a point. But this particular scene proves he can do the opposite as well. It’s subtle, and it doesn’t patronize the viewers (neither the Doctor nor Hame is given exposition lines along the note of „the last time we met“ or „I totally see you as redeemed now, Hame!“).
The very ending of the same episode is most of all a fantastic Martha scene (when she makes him sit down, cut the bullshit and finally tell her the truth re: what happened to Gallifrey and the Time Lords), but it’s also good characterisation stuff for the Doctor in terms of how he feels (due to guilt and lengthy absence) about his people at that point, that longing (it’s the first time we hear Murray Gold’s „Gallifrey“ theme, unless I’m mistaken, which returns later when the Master shows up) which is important to how the end of the season plays out.
„Utopia“: how to narrow it down? The mutual science bro fanboying with Yana (which, yes, is great in terms of the later reveal, but it’s also great in terms of the Doctor delighting in someone’s science skills). The long overdue conversation with Jack, which contains so much, from the serious - admitting that he (the Doctor, not Jack) ran out of panic and bias – btw, for everyone saying that the Ninth Doctor would have been much nicer to Jack upon their reunion, he was still Nine when he ran) – but also the intent „Do you want to die?“ question, which, if you’ve seen the first season of Torchwood, especially Jack during „Out of Time“, is actually anything but an easy one and Jack replies accordingly – to the humorous („the only man you’ll ever be happy with“). And of course the big reveal sequence in its entirety from the moment Martha tells him about the stopwatch. Here’s one of my favourite details about this sequence: after realising there is one other Time Lord around (but not yet which one), the Doctor first ensures the human colonists who just took off to Utopia are okay before running to Yana’s lab. It’s a brief moment, but it’s the kind of moment another writer might have skipped in the script, and yet it’s important for the Doctor’s overall characterisation. Then, of course, we get the goodness of „don’t you understand, it’s different now, we’re the only ones left!“ and „say my name“. Now, throughout Classic Who, if one of the two gave a variation of the „join me“ speech, it was always the Master, never the Doctor. Which isn’t to say the Doctor never makes friendly approaches or doesn’t not-so-secretly enjoy his encounters with the Master at times (nobody forced the Third Doctor to visit the Master in prison, for example), but still, the dynamic between them is pretty clear in terms of who is chasing after whom. (Both in the negative and in the positive sense.) That final Utopia sequence makes it clear just how radically the Time War’s fallout has altered that and exposes the raw neediness in the Tenth Doctor when it comes to the Master, which has lasting impact. (What I mean: I love Twelve/Missy best when it comes to Doctor and Master dynamics in New Who, but I don’t think Missy’s „I want my friend back“ from the s8 finale would have been possibly if the Master hadn’t got treated to the repeated truth of just how much the Doctor wants his company as well throughout the Doctor’s tenth regeneration. Because Delgado!Master got burned repeatedly by Three leading him on, is all I’m saying. *g*)
„Sound of Drums“: whom am I kidding? Naturally, the phone call. Not solely for the homoeroticism, but because of the utter familiarity with each other it conveys, and the longing and anger. This particular version of the Doctor/Master relationship would not have been sustainable in the long run, and was the picture book of unhealthy, but that phone call is still one of my favourite Tenth Doctor and one of my favourite Doctor scenes ever.
„Voyage of the Damned“: two scenes with the Doctor and Mr. Copper, the one early on when the Doctor realises that Mr. Copper actually is lying about his Earth guide credentials and doesn’t expose him, and the last one when he sets Mr. Copper up with a credit card and a new life on Earth. David Tennant invariably has a good rapport with older actors on the show, which makes for a friendly, relaxed vibe between the Doctor and Mr. Copper here. (Also later between the Doctor and Wilf, who first shows up in this episode.)
„Partners in Crime“: the Doctor & Donna reunion via pantomime. (RTD had used that gag with David Tennant in „Casanova“ already, and I don’t blame him for the repetition one bit, because a) Tennant is so great with the faces and gestures, and b) Catherine Tate is even better than Laura Fraser was in return.) Competing with the Doctor making his second „travel with me“ pitch to Donna at the end of the episode, trying to avoid a repetition of the situation with Martha via the „I just want a mate“ declaration and immediately getting flustered by Donna’s misunderstanding of the phrase, which is their screwball comedy dynamic in a nutshell.
„The Fires of Pompeji“: not the one you’d think, because I think of the scene with Donna joining hands with the Doctor to push the lever as primarily favourite Donna scenes, ditto his later admission that she’s right, sometimes he needs someone to stop him. No, but the Doctor enlisting Quintus to break in Lucius Petrus‘ house is one of three cases this season where the Doctor doing some bonding with a moody teen, in this case inspiring said teen to become a doctor (by the end of the episode). He’s pretty good at spotting teenage issues and doing something about them in this regeneration.
„The Sontaran Strategy/The Poison Sky“: on a silly note, the Doctor’s homage to the UNIT Dating Controversy („I used to work for them in the 70s, or were it the 80s“?) On a less silly note, the way the Doctor interacts with Rattigan throughout, which to me works as a good balance between awareness of the enormity of what Rattigan has done, getting that Rattigan is still a teenage boy and using his insight into Rattigan’s mindset (and Rattigan is quite blatantly one of the Doctor’s shadow selves during the RTD era of the show).
And, of course: the Doctor misunderstanding Donna’s announcement early on about visiting her family as her wanting to quit travelling with him and launching into a declaration of how great she is. Since he’s just re-encountered Martha earlier in the same episode, this also counts as a „the Doctor has learned from his mistakes towards Martha“ moment for me.
„The Unicorn and the Wasp“: the whole episode has me in stitches, but here are two of many favourite details: the Doctor’s response to Donna showing up in her 1920s‘ costume (it says something about this particular Doctor-Companion relationship that he can compliment her without this being understood as romantic interest on Donna’s part, just as the matter of fact compliment it is), and the Doctor being unable to resist playing out a big reveal scene in the library, with himself as Poirot. It’s the kind of geeky, nerdish thing that makes the character so relatable to me.
„Midnight“: not a favourite Doctor but a favourite David Tennant moment: that whole spine-chilling sequence where Sky and the Doctor start to talk in sync…and then she overtakes him. It’s acting tour de force by Lesley Sharp as (possessed) Sky and David Tennant. And then, when the Doctor is rendered helpless, frozen, and must watch while the other passengers in the shuttle get ready to kill him, Tennant expresses the horror through his eyes alone. Anyone accusing DT of relying on overacting and grimacing etc. on DW should watch this.
„Turn Left“: the initial scene where the Doctor and Donna try out what looks like a cross between an alien milk shake and a drink, which as it turns out ist the last time we see them together was joyful friends. (Sob!) It’s brief and yet sums up much: them having fun together, being utterly relaxed with each other, and the way this particular Doctor enjoys taste (food and drinks alike). (They toned it down with Ten licking things after his first two episodes, but it’s still there.)
„The Next Doctor“: the Doctor realises the truth about Jackson Lake but is gentle about it, tying with the Doctor accepting Jackson’s invitation to Christmas Dinner at the end. DT and David Morrissey have great chemistry together in this Christmas Special, which by itself was merely okay, neither particularly bad nor good. But I enjoyed their scenes a lot.
„The Waters of Mars“: the entire sequence from the Doctor walking away in his suit but still hearing the desperate chatter of the crew to Adelaide’s „The Time Lord Victorious is wrong!“ is incredible. To take out the initial segment, though, I love how it plays with expectation and twists them into their darkside counterpart. We do expect the Doctor to inwardly snap while listening to the doomed crew, to return to the station in order to save everyone. It’s the heroic thing to do, and it has the „Fire of Pompeji“ precedent of saving someone out of a historical disaster. Except this time there’s no Donna (or any other Companion) around, and what makes the Doctor changing his mind, returning and saving the crew horrifying instead of heroic is that he doesn’t do so out of compassion but because he’s had it with loss and he knows there’s no one to stop him. It’s the part of him that’s capable of megalomania and of being easily as dangerous as the Master to the universe.
„End of Time“: crappy episode? Sure it is. But there are still some favourite scenes in it. The conversation between the Doctor and Wilf in which the Tenth Doctor for the first time admits that by the end of the Time War, the Timelords had become as much of a menace to the universe as the Daleks. The „you could be beautiful“ scene between the Doctor and the Master, which in retrospect lays some ground for Missy and Twelve later. And the big Judgment Day scenario with Rassilon and the High Council, with the Doctor and the Master at different points not shooting each other (with the respective moment of decision mirrored) and the silent woman communicating to the Doctor how to return Gallifrey to the Time Lock.
„The Day of the Doctor“: loved the whole thing, and all the regenerations in it, but to single out one scene for the Ten angle the one in the Tower dungeon which sells me more than anything else on this being the same person in three different stages of his life, and what that says about him. The War Doctor is about to commit genocide on a horrifying scale because he sees no other way out to save the universe. So he asks the „how many children were on Gallifrey that day?“ question, and what shocks him to the core is that the Eleventh Doctor no longer knows. And then the Tenth Doctor admits the number (revealing he does know). Capped by a small exchange between him and Eleven on the „how could you forget?“ „What purpose does it serve?“ (to torment oneself with it) lines. At that point, it’s not that the Doctor doesn’t care anymore (otherwise he wouldn’t be so glad when Clara near the end stops him from repeating the moment and inspires him to change it), but he’s moved on from mentally ever circling that guilt. And that is a good thing. (Both on a Watsonian and Doylist level – the show needed to move forward. Killing off the Time Lords and destroying Gallifrey had worked to relaunch the show and provide the Ninth Doctor with some powerful characterisation, but it also had changed the Doctor from renegade and wandering problem solver to, to use a much loathed in fandom term, lonely god – and that stage needed to be overcome, which it duly was. Which doesn’t mean it shouldn’t have existed in the first place. So that particular scene, viewed from a Tenth Doctor angle, works on me both because the Doctor quietly naming the number after his later self has said he doesn’t know brings on the emotional devastation one more time and shows why he needed to change, to become another self.
The Other Days
Disclaimer the second: I’m referring to David Tennant’s Doctor as the Tenth Doctor in this post not because I’m discounting John Hurt’s Doctor, whom I love, but because it makes my fannish life easier to stick with the old numeration.
„Tooth and Claw“ as well as „Girl in the Fireplace“: the Doctor sincerely admiring the beauty of the respective monsters of the episodes (i.e. the werewolf and the automatons respectively). He occasionally does that in other regenerations as well, but nonetheless it strikes as a particular Ten thing to do
„School Reunion“: The Doctor meets Sarah Jane Smith again. All the scenes between Ten and Sarah Jane are golden, and it’s hard to pick just one, but for the purpose of this exercise, I’ll settle on the very first encounter (when Sarah Jane doesn’t yet know it’s him), both because it’s such a great mirror image/counter point to their first meeting back when he was Three and got introduced as John Smith as well to young investigative journalist Sarah Jane, and because it’s one of those perfect union moments between actor and character. The joy of that moment is both David Tennant, fanboy extraordinaire, meeting Lis Sladen and having the chance to play the Doctor next to the one and only Sarah Jane, and the Doctor re-encountering a dearly loved friend whom he hasn’t seen for several lifetimes.
Same episode: „I’m so old now. I used to have so much mercy.“ That conversation between the Doctor and ASH’s fake headmaster by the swimming pool is a favourite for various reasons, from the shallow (it’s slashy) to the characterisation stuff (the Doctor’s darker side)
„The Runaway Bride“: as long time readers will know, I adore the Doctor & Donna combination. Donna is my favourite Tenth Doctor era Companion. She won over most of fandom in the fourth New Who season, but back when she first showed up, in the Christmas Special The Runaway Bride, there was a lot of resentment voiced. I can pin point the scene where I first thought „these two could be great together“ and „awesome actor chemistry“ and „awesome scene for both characters“, though, and it comes right after the introduction chase sequence and ensueing insanity, when the Doctor and Donna are on the rooftop, sitting together. They’re both worn out from preceding events, plus the Doctor is in post-Rose doldrums, but he’s talking to Donna, not having a one sided expositionary conversation, replying to what she says and to her situation, not simply to the need to keep an eye on her due to the robot Santas. (There’s also still some mutual ribbing, which foreshadows the bantery relationship they will later have. ) Tied with this, but in a similar vein: during the big reveal scene, the Doctor has figured out what Lance has done and why before it gets spelled out, and he immediately realises the emotional implication this will have to Donna and acts accordingly, in addition to engineering their escape.
One more Runaway Bride moment: the first time Gallifrey is named in the New Who era, when the Doctor kills the Empress and her children. While yes, it was this or letting them overrun and consume Earth, it’s also one of the darker Doctor moments, highlighted later by Donna naming it as the reason why she doesn’t accept his offer to travel together. („You just stood there.“) It’s definitely The-Doctor-as-Timelord in a chilling vein (which makes it so apropos that this is the first time anyone on New Who says „Gallifrey“ out loud.
„Gridlock“: Nurse Hame, re: why she and the Face of Boe stuck around on New Earth: „We didn’t have a choice.“ The Doctor: „Yes, you did.“
This is such a lovely quiet scene between them, and it says so much. It depends on continuity – when last we’ve seen her, Hame had been part of an order which exploited and experimented, something the head of said order then tried to justify with not having a choice, which the Doctor soundly rejected. Whereas here, „yes, you did“ means that the Doctor sees Hame has made another choice since – helping people, as another regeneration would put it, „without witness, without reward“. He understands and honors that.
Gridlock is both one of my favourite RTD written and one of my favourite DW episodes anyway, for very many reasons. Now, our Rusty often gets accused, and not without justification, of overplaying his hand with the emotions and the sledgehammer method of making a point. But this particular scene proves he can do the opposite as well. It’s subtle, and it doesn’t patronize the viewers (neither the Doctor nor Hame is given exposition lines along the note of „the last time we met“ or „I totally see you as redeemed now, Hame!“).
The very ending of the same episode is most of all a fantastic Martha scene (when she makes him sit down, cut the bullshit and finally tell her the truth re: what happened to Gallifrey and the Time Lords), but it’s also good characterisation stuff for the Doctor in terms of how he feels (due to guilt and lengthy absence) about his people at that point, that longing (it’s the first time we hear Murray Gold’s „Gallifrey“ theme, unless I’m mistaken, which returns later when the Master shows up) which is important to how the end of the season plays out.
„Utopia“: how to narrow it down? The mutual science bro fanboying with Yana (which, yes, is great in terms of the later reveal, but it’s also great in terms of the Doctor delighting in someone’s science skills). The long overdue conversation with Jack, which contains so much, from the serious - admitting that he (the Doctor, not Jack) ran out of panic and bias – btw, for everyone saying that the Ninth Doctor would have been much nicer to Jack upon their reunion, he was still Nine when he ran) – but also the intent „Do you want to die?“ question, which, if you’ve seen the first season of Torchwood, especially Jack during „Out of Time“, is actually anything but an easy one and Jack replies accordingly – to the humorous („the only man you’ll ever be happy with“). And of course the big reveal sequence in its entirety from the moment Martha tells him about the stopwatch. Here’s one of my favourite details about this sequence: after realising there is one other Time Lord around (but not yet which one), the Doctor first ensures the human colonists who just took off to Utopia are okay before running to Yana’s lab. It’s a brief moment, but it’s the kind of moment another writer might have skipped in the script, and yet it’s important for the Doctor’s overall characterisation. Then, of course, we get the goodness of „don’t you understand, it’s different now, we’re the only ones left!“ and „say my name“. Now, throughout Classic Who, if one of the two gave a variation of the „join me“ speech, it was always the Master, never the Doctor. Which isn’t to say the Doctor never makes friendly approaches or doesn’t not-so-secretly enjoy his encounters with the Master at times (nobody forced the Third Doctor to visit the Master in prison, for example), but still, the dynamic between them is pretty clear in terms of who is chasing after whom. (Both in the negative and in the positive sense.) That final Utopia sequence makes it clear just how radically the Time War’s fallout has altered that and exposes the raw neediness in the Tenth Doctor when it comes to the Master, which has lasting impact. (What I mean: I love Twelve/Missy best when it comes to Doctor and Master dynamics in New Who, but I don’t think Missy’s „I want my friend back“ from the s8 finale would have been possibly if the Master hadn’t got treated to the repeated truth of just how much the Doctor wants his company as well throughout the Doctor’s tenth regeneration. Because Delgado!Master got burned repeatedly by Three leading him on, is all I’m saying. *g*)
„Sound of Drums“: whom am I kidding? Naturally, the phone call. Not solely for the homoeroticism, but because of the utter familiarity with each other it conveys, and the longing and anger. This particular version of the Doctor/Master relationship would not have been sustainable in the long run, and was the picture book of unhealthy, but that phone call is still one of my favourite Tenth Doctor and one of my favourite Doctor scenes ever.
„Voyage of the Damned“: two scenes with the Doctor and Mr. Copper, the one early on when the Doctor realises that Mr. Copper actually is lying about his Earth guide credentials and doesn’t expose him, and the last one when he sets Mr. Copper up with a credit card and a new life on Earth. David Tennant invariably has a good rapport with older actors on the show, which makes for a friendly, relaxed vibe between the Doctor and Mr. Copper here. (Also later between the Doctor and Wilf, who first shows up in this episode.)
„Partners in Crime“: the Doctor & Donna reunion via pantomime. (RTD had used that gag with David Tennant in „Casanova“ already, and I don’t blame him for the repetition one bit, because a) Tennant is so great with the faces and gestures, and b) Catherine Tate is even better than Laura Fraser was in return.) Competing with the Doctor making his second „travel with me“ pitch to Donna at the end of the episode, trying to avoid a repetition of the situation with Martha via the „I just want a mate“ declaration and immediately getting flustered by Donna’s misunderstanding of the phrase, which is their screwball comedy dynamic in a nutshell.
„The Fires of Pompeji“: not the one you’d think, because I think of the scene with Donna joining hands with the Doctor to push the lever as primarily favourite Donna scenes, ditto his later admission that she’s right, sometimes he needs someone to stop him. No, but the Doctor enlisting Quintus to break in Lucius Petrus‘ house is one of three cases this season where the Doctor doing some bonding with a moody teen, in this case inspiring said teen to become a doctor (by the end of the episode). He’s pretty good at spotting teenage issues and doing something about them in this regeneration.
„The Sontaran Strategy/The Poison Sky“: on a silly note, the Doctor’s homage to the UNIT Dating Controversy („I used to work for them in the 70s, or were it the 80s“?) On a less silly note, the way the Doctor interacts with Rattigan throughout, which to me works as a good balance between awareness of the enormity of what Rattigan has done, getting that Rattigan is still a teenage boy and using his insight into Rattigan’s mindset (and Rattigan is quite blatantly one of the Doctor’s shadow selves during the RTD era of the show).
And, of course: the Doctor misunderstanding Donna’s announcement early on about visiting her family as her wanting to quit travelling with him and launching into a declaration of how great she is. Since he’s just re-encountered Martha earlier in the same episode, this also counts as a „the Doctor has learned from his mistakes towards Martha“ moment for me.
„The Unicorn and the Wasp“: the whole episode has me in stitches, but here are two of many favourite details: the Doctor’s response to Donna showing up in her 1920s‘ costume (it says something about this particular Doctor-Companion relationship that he can compliment her without this being understood as romantic interest on Donna’s part, just as the matter of fact compliment it is), and the Doctor being unable to resist playing out a big reveal scene in the library, with himself as Poirot. It’s the kind of geeky, nerdish thing that makes the character so relatable to me.
„Midnight“: not a favourite Doctor but a favourite David Tennant moment: that whole spine-chilling sequence where Sky and the Doctor start to talk in sync…and then she overtakes him. It’s acting tour de force by Lesley Sharp as (possessed) Sky and David Tennant. And then, when the Doctor is rendered helpless, frozen, and must watch while the other passengers in the shuttle get ready to kill him, Tennant expresses the horror through his eyes alone. Anyone accusing DT of relying on overacting and grimacing etc. on DW should watch this.
„Turn Left“: the initial scene where the Doctor and Donna try out what looks like a cross between an alien milk shake and a drink, which as it turns out ist the last time we see them together was joyful friends. (Sob!) It’s brief and yet sums up much: them having fun together, being utterly relaxed with each other, and the way this particular Doctor enjoys taste (food and drinks alike). (They toned it down with Ten licking things after his first two episodes, but it’s still there.)
„The Next Doctor“: the Doctor realises the truth about Jackson Lake but is gentle about it, tying with the Doctor accepting Jackson’s invitation to Christmas Dinner at the end. DT and David Morrissey have great chemistry together in this Christmas Special, which by itself was merely okay, neither particularly bad nor good. But I enjoyed their scenes a lot.
„The Waters of Mars“: the entire sequence from the Doctor walking away in his suit but still hearing the desperate chatter of the crew to Adelaide’s „The Time Lord Victorious is wrong!“ is incredible. To take out the initial segment, though, I love how it plays with expectation and twists them into their darkside counterpart. We do expect the Doctor to inwardly snap while listening to the doomed crew, to return to the station in order to save everyone. It’s the heroic thing to do, and it has the „Fire of Pompeji“ precedent of saving someone out of a historical disaster. Except this time there’s no Donna (or any other Companion) around, and what makes the Doctor changing his mind, returning and saving the crew horrifying instead of heroic is that he doesn’t do so out of compassion but because he’s had it with loss and he knows there’s no one to stop him. It’s the part of him that’s capable of megalomania and of being easily as dangerous as the Master to the universe.
„End of Time“: crappy episode? Sure it is. But there are still some favourite scenes in it. The conversation between the Doctor and Wilf in which the Tenth Doctor for the first time admits that by the end of the Time War, the Timelords had become as much of a menace to the universe as the Daleks. The „you could be beautiful“ scene between the Doctor and the Master, which in retrospect lays some ground for Missy and Twelve later. And the big Judgment Day scenario with Rassilon and the High Council, with the Doctor and the Master at different points not shooting each other (with the respective moment of decision mirrored) and the silent woman communicating to the Doctor how to return Gallifrey to the Time Lock.
„The Day of the Doctor“: loved the whole thing, and all the regenerations in it, but to single out one scene for the Ten angle the one in the Tower dungeon which sells me more than anything else on this being the same person in three different stages of his life, and what that says about him. The War Doctor is about to commit genocide on a horrifying scale because he sees no other way out to save the universe. So he asks the „how many children were on Gallifrey that day?“ question, and what shocks him to the core is that the Eleventh Doctor no longer knows. And then the Tenth Doctor admits the number (revealing he does know). Capped by a small exchange between him and Eleven on the „how could you forget?“ „What purpose does it serve?“ (to torment oneself with it) lines. At that point, it’s not that the Doctor doesn’t care anymore (otherwise he wouldn’t be so glad when Clara near the end stops him from repeating the moment and inspires him to change it), but he’s moved on from mentally ever circling that guilt. And that is a good thing. (Both on a Watsonian and Doylist level – the show needed to move forward. Killing off the Time Lords and destroying Gallifrey had worked to relaunch the show and provide the Ninth Doctor with some powerful characterisation, but it also had changed the Doctor from renegade and wandering problem solver to, to use a much loathed in fandom term, lonely god – and that stage needed to be overcome, which it duly was. Which doesn’t mean it shouldn’t have existed in the first place. So that particular scene, viewed from a Tenth Doctor angle, works on me both because the Doctor quietly naming the number after his later self has said he doesn’t know brings on the emotional devastation one more time and shows why he needed to change, to become another self.
The Other Days
no subject
Date: 2018-01-25 02:14 pm (UTC)You are right about the scene in the Waters of Mars. That episode has always bugged me, however, because it's a great example of the writers not using the fact that he has a time machine. The people on Mars are buried under tons of sand, there was no indication that there was an expedition that retrieved the bodies. And he has a Time Machine. Just swoop them up and take them into the future. Dead can also mean removed from the timeline and not affecting history anymore, not necessarily dead dead. Tenant does a great job and it's a really powerful scene, but completely ignores how they could have been saved.
Ten may not be my favorite Doctor, but I did like Tenant and I did like most of his run. I agree with your scenes.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-25 04:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-25 05:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-25 05:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-25 06:09 pm (UTC)I have seen relatively little Doctor Who compared to nearly everyone I know, and I saw particularly little of the Tenth Doctor, which is why I had to see Hamlet to realize that David Tennant could act, but I watched "Utopia" for Derek Jacobi (and then the rest of that arc, because I was already invested, which is how I discovered John Simm) and "The Day of the Doctor" for John Hurt and they both paid off on all fronts. I wrote a little about the latter, but not the former.
You're good at isolating both the in-world and structural reasons that particular moments land as they do; I enjoy reading it.
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Date: 2018-01-26 08:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-25 06:52 pm (UTC)I love Twelve/Missy best when it comes to Doctor and Master dynamics in New Who, but I don’t think Missy’s „I want my friend back“ from the s8 finale would have been possibly if the Master hadn’t got treated to the repeated truth of just how much the Doctor wants his company as well throughout the Doctor’s tenth regeneration.
Yes! That's an excellent point.
because I think of the scene with Donna joining hands with the Doctor to push the lever as primarily favourite Donna scenes
That's interesting, because for me it's very much a favourite Doctor scene, and since The Day of the Doctor famously un-pushed another button, an utterly crucial one. I maintain that we need things like this, that the Doctor as a character needs scenes like this. Or maybe it's just that I, as a viewer, need that. But either way, crucial: you can always save someone, but you don't always get out of impossible choices, nevertheless. Even if you are the Doctor.
It’s the part of him that’s capable of megalomania and of being easily as dangerous as the Master to the universe.
Yes! That's what I love so much about The Waters of Mars.
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Date: 2018-01-26 08:34 am (UTC)Oh, I hear you, and I agree. However, I think that feeling on my part owes its existence to a great deal to the Moffat years, because the Moff has made letting the Doctor escape these choices his deal. During the RTD years, he did find other solutions more often than not, but not always. So when the episode was first broadcast, it wasn't yet so extraordinary in this regard.
(Also, leave it to our Rusty to turn "the Doctor decides to change history and save everyone" into the ultimate character horror scenario. It occurs to me that the Moffatian equivalent low point for the Doctor is when Twelve decides to risk space time and all to save Clara, i.e. one particular person, but that comes after having spent billions of years of mental torture.)
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Date: 2018-01-26 06:32 pm (UTC)And maybe that's weird of me, but the Doctor's low point in Waters of Mars essentially made me go "yes, THIS!" about the Doctor's capacity for darkness, whereas the Clara thing was just irritating to me, both as a character point and as a plot point. I still wish she could have ended with Face the Raven.
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Date: 2018-01-26 12:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-26 08:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-26 09:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-26 01:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-27 12:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-27 08:53 am (UTC)Incidentally, the one time Tom Baker on Doctor Who did evoke a torrent of fannish love in me was in The Day of the Doctor. Never mind my inability to connect to Four in any way, when Unexpected Baker showed up as the Caretaker at the end, I was overwhelmed along with the rest of the cinema I was sitting in to watch the Anniversary Special.
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Date: 2018-01-26 07:51 pm (UTC)My favourite moments in The Runaway Bride tend to change every rewatch, but count me as another person who loves this episode and everything Ten-Donna in it. I really like how Ten reacts to her throughout and DT's deliveries are a thing of beauty. (Even the small and inconsequential things, for example his "I'm not... I'm not... I'm not from Mars!" while Donna is already gone down the road and not even hearing him anymore.)
Lovely to read about Gridlock, hadn't thought about that episode in quite a while, and also the scene (and theme) you focus on with the Pompeji episode.
to single out one scene for the Ten angle the one in the Tower dungeon which sells me more than anything else on this being the same person in three different stages of his life
Interesting! And yes, this was the episode that had me thinking about different Doctor's reactions to the Time War a lot as well. (Which is why I thought that it was quite right that Nine wasn't in this episode, even if Moffat had wanted him to be, because IMO, he was TOO close to the events and his reactions throughout his season were more immediate, whereas Ten is already spiralling out from that and Eleven is a step removed (but still running).)
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Date: 2018-01-27 09:01 am (UTC)Re: Nine, well, I assume that if Moffat had been able to secure Christopher Eccleston for the Anniversary, the War Doctor would not have existed, we'd have seen Eight transition into Nine in that five minutes special, and the Ninth Doctor would have been the one to actually press the button (or not), meaning, again, that he would have encountered the other two just before, not after he'd done it. So basically it wouldn't have been post -Time War Nine the traumatized veteran but just pre- "do I or don't I" Nine whom the audience had never met at that stage before. But with Eccleston's steadfast refusal, the War Doctor came into existence, and that of course left no narrative need for an appearance by the Ninth Doctor.
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Date: 2018-01-26 08:25 pm (UTC)And on searching, someone's snipped it up and put it on youtube. Marvellous: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSK1APQu6K4
Puja
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Date: 2018-01-31 07:39 am (UTC)Lovely, thoughtful post, as ever. I love your examples - the utter chill of that scene in Midnight and Ten meeting Sarah Jane again and The Waters of Mars. And yeah, man - this isn't a slam on RTD but I'm so glad Moffat put the Doctor back together again with Eleven, because man Ten was in bits.
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Date: 2018-02-01 02:38 pm (UTC)