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Apr. 14th, 2019 02:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakSince we won't get any new Doctor Who this year (whyyyy?), I've been randomly rewatching parts of the Moffat era as well Thirteen's first season. This didn't cause me to come to any new conclusions (the Twelfth Doctor seasons are my favourite of Moffat's reign, Chibnall's first season is enjoyable without being spectacular), but it reminded me of a great many things I love about the show. (And also made me re-listen to some Big Finish stuff for good measure.)
Another old conclusion that got revived by rewatching: other than The Doctor's Wife (because Doctor/TARDIS OTP, of course) and big anniversary special The Day of the Doctor, my not so secret favourite episode of the Eleventh Doctor part of Moffat Who might be Amy's Choice, and I maintain it's one of the most underestimated ones, possibly because Simon Nye, who wrote it, was neither the show runner nor a famous guest writer like Neil Gaiman.
To re-capitulate: Amy's Choice has a deceptively simple premise: seemigly two realities with our heroes having to figure out which one is the true one. Since one of them has Amy and Rory living in their hometown years post Doctor, and Amy's pregnant, and the other has Amy and Rory plus the Doctor in the TARDIS where last we saw them, this at first seems very obvious. But wait! There are increasing hints that the "meanwhile, on the TARDIS" reality is not quite right, either. Also, there's an entity calling himself the Dreamlord around, viciously played by Toby Jones, goading our heroes in both realiities, with special venom reserved for the Doctor. (Who figures out who the Dreamlord must be quite early on, not least because "there's no one else who hates me that much".) (No, not the Master or Davros.)
The episode works for me on various levels; on a technical level - both realities are increasingly weirder, and the stakes feel ever more threatening, plus the only way out is a threat in itself - dying in one reality, which, if it is the "false" one, means you wake up in the real one, but if you choose wrongly, you're dead . But even more so on a content level, and as a character piece. This was the first episode where I felt I had a grip on who Amy was as a character, and to me, it's hands down one of the best investigations into the darker, murkier sides of the Doctor's personality and consciousness the show ever did. This despite the fact this isn't one of those episodes where we get presented with an "evil" Doctor a la the Valyard in Old Who or "Mr. Clever" in the New Who episode Nightmare in Silver, or an opponent designed to mirror the Doctor's darker impulses without the positive ones (with the orignal conception of the Master but the the most prominent but by no means the only one of such examples), or even the Doctor in a mixture of hubris and nervous breakdown (The Waters of Mars comes to mind). No, in Amy's Choice, the Doctor tries to save the day, as he always does (and eventually succeeds in that), and doesn't commit any ethical violatations while doing so, and no one but our three main characters is threatened, the stakes aren't a planet, let alone the universe.
And we're still treated to that ruthless look at his subconcious for the entire episode. That it's not the Doctor in extremis but the Doctor on a regular day is fundamental to its success as such a look, imo. And now I have to get spoilery. It's not just that the Dreamlord turns out to be the embodiment of the Doctor's subconscious, created via the Macguffin of the episode, making all those vicious one liners self accusations, but that both "realities" mirror the those fears and loathings as well. it's not just that the dream version of Ledworth, Amy's and Rory's hometown, is deadly dull, but that the old people in it literally consume and destroy their young in order to continue. (Complete with the Dreamlord telling the Doctor about himself that he's not anyone's friend, because friends keeps in touch, while he moves on to the next companion(s) to rejuvinate himself - "The old man prefers the company of the young". This, btw, would have worked with any incarnation of the Doctor, but is especially effective with the youngest actor to play the Doctor until that point, Matt Smith in his first season.) The TARDIS, otoh, literally becomes a big frost zone, turning everyone in it to unchanging ice. "You can't really believe that", Amy says in the last scene about the Dreamlord's accusations after the Doctor revealed the Dreamlord's true identity to her. The Doctor doesn't reply, just smiles and changes the subject. Because of course he does believe it.
That this particular episode is such a favourite for me probably also explains why I didn't fall in love with the Moffat era until Capaldi's Doctor came along, because in general it's rather atypical for the Eleventh Doctor seasons. These were themselves a counterpoint to the previous melodrama-heavy end of the RTD years, and thus the Eleventh Doctor in general definitely counts as one of the "lighter" Doctors. (I don't mean that as a criticism; it really was necessary at the time.) But while I don't want grimdark Who, I do like a certain sharpness in my Doctor characterisation along with the whimsy, some capacity for disturbing mixed in with the capacity for kindness. And Capaldi's Doctor was ideal for in this regard. He wasn't one note about it and developed in his three seasons; the Twelfth Doctor as he was with Bill in his last season was a great deal kinder to most people he encountered than the Twelfth Doctor in his first season with Clara, when she as well as he were wondering whether or not he was a good man, for example. But both Twelve in his early episodes and in his last ones just before regenerating felt like a version of the Doctor capable of being both, the "idiot in the box" and the "oncoming storm". Which is what makes the character so interesting to me.
Another old conclusion that got revived by rewatching: other than The Doctor's Wife (because Doctor/TARDIS OTP, of course) and big anniversary special The Day of the Doctor, my not so secret favourite episode of the Eleventh Doctor part of Moffat Who might be Amy's Choice, and I maintain it's one of the most underestimated ones, possibly because Simon Nye, who wrote it, was neither the show runner nor a famous guest writer like Neil Gaiman.
To re-capitulate: Amy's Choice has a deceptively simple premise: seemigly two realities with our heroes having to figure out which one is the true one. Since one of them has Amy and Rory living in their hometown years post Doctor, and Amy's pregnant, and the other has Amy and Rory plus the Doctor in the TARDIS where last we saw them, this at first seems very obvious. But wait! There are increasing hints that the "meanwhile, on the TARDIS" reality is not quite right, either. Also, there's an entity calling himself the Dreamlord around, viciously played by Toby Jones, goading our heroes in both realiities, with special venom reserved for the Doctor. (Who figures out who the Dreamlord must be quite early on, not least because "there's no one else who hates me that much".) (No, not the Master or Davros.)
The episode works for me on various levels; on a technical level - both realities are increasingly weirder, and the stakes feel ever more threatening, plus the only way out is a threat in itself - dying in one reality, which, if it is the "false" one, means you wake up in the real one, but if you choose wrongly, you're dead . But even more so on a content level, and as a character piece. This was the first episode where I felt I had a grip on who Amy was as a character, and to me, it's hands down one of the best investigations into the darker, murkier sides of the Doctor's personality and consciousness the show ever did. This despite the fact this isn't one of those episodes where we get presented with an "evil" Doctor a la the Valyard in Old Who or "Mr. Clever" in the New Who episode Nightmare in Silver, or an opponent designed to mirror the Doctor's darker impulses without the positive ones (with the orignal conception of the Master but the the most prominent but by no means the only one of such examples), or even the Doctor in a mixture of hubris and nervous breakdown (The Waters of Mars comes to mind). No, in Amy's Choice, the Doctor tries to save the day, as he always does (and eventually succeeds in that), and doesn't commit any ethical violatations while doing so, and no one but our three main characters is threatened, the stakes aren't a planet, let alone the universe.
And we're still treated to that ruthless look at his subconcious for the entire episode. That it's not the Doctor in extremis but the Doctor on a regular day is fundamental to its success as such a look, imo. And now I have to get spoilery. It's not just that the Dreamlord turns out to be the embodiment of the Doctor's subconscious, created via the Macguffin of the episode, making all those vicious one liners self accusations, but that both "realities" mirror the those fears and loathings as well. it's not just that the dream version of Ledworth, Amy's and Rory's hometown, is deadly dull, but that the old people in it literally consume and destroy their young in order to continue. (Complete with the Dreamlord telling the Doctor about himself that he's not anyone's friend, because friends keeps in touch, while he moves on to the next companion(s) to rejuvinate himself - "The old man prefers the company of the young". This, btw, would have worked with any incarnation of the Doctor, but is especially effective with the youngest actor to play the Doctor until that point, Matt Smith in his first season.) The TARDIS, otoh, literally becomes a big frost zone, turning everyone in it to unchanging ice. "You can't really believe that", Amy says in the last scene about the Dreamlord's accusations after the Doctor revealed the Dreamlord's true identity to her. The Doctor doesn't reply, just smiles and changes the subject. Because of course he does believe it.
That this particular episode is such a favourite for me probably also explains why I didn't fall in love with the Moffat era until Capaldi's Doctor came along, because in general it's rather atypical for the Eleventh Doctor seasons. These were themselves a counterpoint to the previous melodrama-heavy end of the RTD years, and thus the Eleventh Doctor in general definitely counts as one of the "lighter" Doctors. (I don't mean that as a criticism; it really was necessary at the time.) But while I don't want grimdark Who, I do like a certain sharpness in my Doctor characterisation along with the whimsy, some capacity for disturbing mixed in with the capacity for kindness. And Capaldi's Doctor was ideal for in this regard. He wasn't one note about it and developed in his three seasons; the Twelfth Doctor as he was with Bill in his last season was a great deal kinder to most people he encountered than the Twelfth Doctor in his first season with Clara, when she as well as he were wondering whether or not he was a good man, for example. But both Twelve in his early episodes and in his last ones just before regenerating felt like a version of the Doctor capable of being both, the "idiot in the box" and the "oncoming storm". Which is what makes the character so interesting to me.
