Old Who & New Who
May. 9th, 2006 04:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakI just arrived in Erfurt, one of my favourite towns to visit, and lo and behold, I'm at a hotel which as opposed to most others in Germany grants online access for free. Yay! More Dr. Who reviews, old and new.
Resurrection of the Daleks: oh dear. It had moments. Also, I do appreciate that the fallout between Davros and the Daleks wasn’t forgotten. But all in all, it was a strange mixture of bleak and bland. You’d think that an angst addict such as yours truly would have no problem with all the guest stars dying, but no. It doesn’t fit. I think it was Andraste who said Saward would have been happier had he be writing for a hypothetical continuation of Blake’s 7, and well, yes, except that even Blake at his most idealistic, at the start of s1, would have been appalled at the Doctor’s “I must kill Davros! No, I can’t, so I shall have pointless conversations and wander around the station some more” behaviour. As for the rest of the Liberator crew, don’t even ask. Also, there is the problem of the regulars. I didn’t get a real impression of what the Fifth Doctor, Turlough and Tegan were like. Tegan was incapacitated for most of the story and thus remained a cypher, until her final scene, which was good and well executed – her telling the Doctor that she didn’t want to continue with all the corpses around them, that she had enough – but as I had never watched her in anything before, there was no resonance there to me as there would have been with another companion. Turlough was even more of a cypher, with the only difference being that he ran around while Tegan lay around for most of the story. And the Fifth Doctor, well, he came most alive when being tortured and helping Steen breaking his mind conditioning, but otherwise, see above: bland. Most unfortunate in the scene with Davros. Perhaps a strong performance would have helped overlook the writing, I don’t know. Anyway, if you do a “hero threatens villain but can’t do it because it would be murder” scene, which is of course what the audience expects of a hero anyway, you’ll have to do better than that. So, not impressed by Peter Davison so far.
On the brighter side of things, there was The Girl in the Fireplace. Now I have liked Madame de Pompadour ever since reading Nancy Mitford’s biography, even more since reading a selection of her letters, and was quite looking forward to an episode with her as the guest star. About the only thing I was dissapointed with, aside from the faux pas of letting her introduce the king to the Doctor instead of the other way around (not done!), was the use of the horrid fake portrait at the end. I was hoping they would at some point show the portrait which currently hangs in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, because it captures one big reason why I like this woman: she didn’t let herself be painted with a rose or some other flowers, but with a book in her hand. (Diderot’s and D’Alembert’s Encyclopedia, which was daring as this was on the index of the Church at the time.) Other than that, the script and Sophia Myles did a good job. What’s more, this was a meta episode and I do love (well done) meta episodes. Reinette’s entire life span passing throughout the course of a single episode, seeing her change from child to woman to corpse so quickly, put us in the shoes of the Doctor, because that is essentially how all human lifespans must appear to him. The various windows opening to different periods of her life were a great metaphor for tv storytelling, because of course we do what the Doctor does here, experience crucial moments with our tv characters and come to care for them, in some cases even fall in love. (The image Reinette herself uses, of the Doctor walking through chapters of her life, also is very apt.) And then there was the excellent choice of villains, or rather, antagonists (as opposed to your avarage killing sci fi robot these droids were without malice; they were simply, as the Doctor said, carrying out their programm and not grasping there was a difference between using technical and human parts). The 18th and 19th century was obsessed with automatons. These were so E.T.A. Hoffmann, and at the same time they were also counterparts of the pre-revolution French aristocracy, puppets in Versailles going through endless rituals and being very pretty and pointless while doing so while, you know, cannibalizing the country. “We are the same” indeed.
There was a lovely surrealistic atmosphere throughout, too, best captured by image of a horse on a space station. And having recently watched Three a lot, I’m reminded that the Doctor admiring the beauty of the monsters he defeats is a trait long, long established before this season. (The line about him being the thing monsters are afraid of, otoh, was pinched from BTVS where it was said by and about the Slayer herself.) Of course, this was also a girl of the week episode, and girls of the week episodes are tricky to pull off credibly. (A good girl of the week episode would be Babylon 5’s “Born to the Purple”; a bad girl of the week episode would be the first or second season DS9 one where they tried to sell us Benjamin Sisko in love with a ghost.) I did believe the Doctor/Reinette story, most of all because they didn’t try to convince us the Doctor suddenly discovered his soulmate or something like that. He wasn’t more than in like, attraction and somewhat tickled by the fact this was Madame de Pompadour (Fanboy!Doctor strikes again, as with Dickens) until we got the mindmeld, err, telepathic investigation, and then it became something more. Thanks to The Three Doctors, Time Lord telepathy didn’t throw me, and I was very intrigued by the tidbits of background info we received, not just the “lonely boy” bit but the hint that he has a real name, other than “The Doctor”, (which he doesn’t tell). With my fragmentary canon knowledge, I couldn’t say, but isn’t this new? And hey, dancing! Also, once![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
andrastewhite sees this episode, she is so going to download the My Fair Lady soundclip. (I am utterly unsurprised the Doctor knows his Alan Jay Lerner.)
One doesn’t have to be a genius, however, to guess that the two most controversial points of this episode are probably the Doctor coming to the rescue in a way that (as far as he knows) will leave him stranded in the 18th century and Mickey and Rose on a space station, and the ‘shipping question. As to the former, given that I’ve now seen the man letting himself transported into a freakin’ Black Hole from which he would not have escaped and had not the slightest idea how to escape from, had not the calvary arrived later, I didn’t expect him to do anything else. He wouldn’t let the automatons behead Madame de Pompadour and cannibalize much of the French court, and there was no one else at hand who could have stopped this. What’s more, I think he would have done the same if it had been Louis XV whose head the automatons wanted (i.e. someone he had no feelings for) instead of Reinette. Doesn’t mean rescuing Reinette wasn’t a major incentive as well. Did he consider what would happen to Rose and Mickey next? Not at that moment, no, I don’t think so, but I don’t think he believed, or had reason to believe, they’d be stuck on the station. Time is fluid to him. Given that One visited Paris a measily few decades later, he could have pinched the TARDIS from his earlier self, used it to transport himself to the space station right after he left it, and send it back without having to encounter an earlier incarnation again (while One, Ian and Barbara and Susan were gallivanting about).
All this being said: I felt for Rose when he rode through the mirror. (The mirror, smashing; or, the danger of what happens if you go from watcher and observer of the story to interacting with the personnel.) She had to feel suckerpunched, not just because of the “are we stuck on this space station now?” question (btw, this once more underlines the power imbalance between the Doctor and any companions who aren’t timelords and –ladies themselves), but because so shortly after meeting Sarah Jane, it was impossible not to see this as just what he had said would not happen: him leaving her behind. Poor Rose.
On the brighter side of things, she and Mickey are so relaxed and comfortable with each other (which, aside from her reaction to him joining the TARDIS, they also were in School Reunion) that I’m starting to wonder whether they might not end up together after all. Say what you want, Mickey loves her and after that one instant of panic in Rose always came through for her when she needed him. (Mickey is starting to remind me of an odd mixture of Xander and early Wesley.)
Lastly: though the Doctor’s remark about the Queen and the Mistress getting along just fine on one level can be taken as male naivete he is actually correct in this instance. Madame de Pompadour, clever woman that she was, made a point of winning the Queen over as well, showing her deference and politeness, never joining in the mockery of the Queen’s Polish background and manners. As a result, the Queen infinitely preferred her to her various rivals – and being the King’s maitresse en titre was the most envied position the country had for a woman, so she had many – and never tried to use her own influence, via her relations, against her.
(Compare and contrast: Louis XV.’s other famous mistress, Madame du Barry, never bothred cultivating anyone, was hated by his daughters and even more so by the girl who married his grandson, Marie Antoinette. The war between the young Marie Antoinette and la Dubarry became legendary and was only ended when after much pressure, Marie Antoinette addressed the King’s mistress with a single sentence: “There are many people at Versailles today, aren’t there?”)
And the tv times, they are changing. I loved the non-judgmental matter of fact way the episode showed Reinette determined to become the King’s mistress before she ever met him. Which is historically true (in fact, her mother basically trained her from birth to become the King’s mistress one day), but show me the tv programm which wouldn’t have characterized her as an evil schemer because of this, instead of giving us the “Every woman in Paris knows your ambition” – “Every woman in Paris shares them” exchange. And the Doctor listening, somewhat wistful and amused instead of condemming.
Speaking of the Doctor, I'm getting more fond of Ten every week. And David Tennant. Thanks to Resurrection of the Daleks, I've now seen adventures of all incarnations of the Time Lord so far, and still have so much catching up to do that I wouldn't even dare to go for a ranking beyond stating that Seven remains my favourite. Still, if I had to choose between more adventures with Nine and more adventures with Ten, I suspect I'd pick Ten. Not sure yet why, though.
Next week: bring on the Cybermen!
Resurrection of the Daleks: oh dear. It had moments. Also, I do appreciate that the fallout between Davros and the Daleks wasn’t forgotten. But all in all, it was a strange mixture of bleak and bland. You’d think that an angst addict such as yours truly would have no problem with all the guest stars dying, but no. It doesn’t fit. I think it was Andraste who said Saward would have been happier had he be writing for a hypothetical continuation of Blake’s 7, and well, yes, except that even Blake at his most idealistic, at the start of s1, would have been appalled at the Doctor’s “I must kill Davros! No, I can’t, so I shall have pointless conversations and wander around the station some more” behaviour. As for the rest of the Liberator crew, don’t even ask. Also, there is the problem of the regulars. I didn’t get a real impression of what the Fifth Doctor, Turlough and Tegan were like. Tegan was incapacitated for most of the story and thus remained a cypher, until her final scene, which was good and well executed – her telling the Doctor that she didn’t want to continue with all the corpses around them, that she had enough – but as I had never watched her in anything before, there was no resonance there to me as there would have been with another companion. Turlough was even more of a cypher, with the only difference being that he ran around while Tegan lay around for most of the story. And the Fifth Doctor, well, he came most alive when being tortured and helping Steen breaking his mind conditioning, but otherwise, see above: bland. Most unfortunate in the scene with Davros. Perhaps a strong performance would have helped overlook the writing, I don’t know. Anyway, if you do a “hero threatens villain but can’t do it because it would be murder” scene, which is of course what the audience expects of a hero anyway, you’ll have to do better than that. So, not impressed by Peter Davison so far.
On the brighter side of things, there was The Girl in the Fireplace. Now I have liked Madame de Pompadour ever since reading Nancy Mitford’s biography, even more since reading a selection of her letters, and was quite looking forward to an episode with her as the guest star. About the only thing I was dissapointed with, aside from the faux pas of letting her introduce the king to the Doctor instead of the other way around (not done!), was the use of the horrid fake portrait at the end. I was hoping they would at some point show the portrait which currently hangs in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, because it captures one big reason why I like this woman: she didn’t let herself be painted with a rose or some other flowers, but with a book in her hand. (Diderot’s and D’Alembert’s Encyclopedia, which was daring as this was on the index of the Church at the time.) Other than that, the script and Sophia Myles did a good job. What’s more, this was a meta episode and I do love (well done) meta episodes. Reinette’s entire life span passing throughout the course of a single episode, seeing her change from child to woman to corpse so quickly, put us in the shoes of the Doctor, because that is essentially how all human lifespans must appear to him. The various windows opening to different periods of her life were a great metaphor for tv storytelling, because of course we do what the Doctor does here, experience crucial moments with our tv characters and come to care for them, in some cases even fall in love. (The image Reinette herself uses, of the Doctor walking through chapters of her life, also is very apt.) And then there was the excellent choice of villains, or rather, antagonists (as opposed to your avarage killing sci fi robot these droids were without malice; they were simply, as the Doctor said, carrying out their programm and not grasping there was a difference between using technical and human parts). The 18th and 19th century was obsessed with automatons. These were so E.T.A. Hoffmann, and at the same time they were also counterparts of the pre-revolution French aristocracy, puppets in Versailles going through endless rituals and being very pretty and pointless while doing so while, you know, cannibalizing the country. “We are the same” indeed.
There was a lovely surrealistic atmosphere throughout, too, best captured by image of a horse on a space station. And having recently watched Three a lot, I’m reminded that the Doctor admiring the beauty of the monsters he defeats is a trait long, long established before this season. (The line about him being the thing monsters are afraid of, otoh, was pinched from BTVS where it was said by and about the Slayer herself.) Of course, this was also a girl of the week episode, and girls of the week episodes are tricky to pull off credibly. (A good girl of the week episode would be Babylon 5’s “Born to the Purple”; a bad girl of the week episode would be the first or second season DS9 one where they tried to sell us Benjamin Sisko in love with a ghost.) I did believe the Doctor/Reinette story, most of all because they didn’t try to convince us the Doctor suddenly discovered his soulmate or something like that. He wasn’t more than in like, attraction and somewhat tickled by the fact this was Madame de Pompadour (Fanboy!Doctor strikes again, as with Dickens) until we got the mindmeld, err, telepathic investigation, and then it became something more. Thanks to The Three Doctors, Time Lord telepathy didn’t throw me, and I was very intrigued by the tidbits of background info we received, not just the “lonely boy” bit but the hint that he has a real name, other than “The Doctor”, (which he doesn’t tell). With my fragmentary canon knowledge, I couldn’t say, but isn’t this new? And hey, dancing! Also, once
andrastewhite sees this episode, she is so going to download the My Fair Lady soundclip. (I am utterly unsurprised the Doctor knows his Alan Jay Lerner.) One doesn’t have to be a genius, however, to guess that the two most controversial points of this episode are probably the Doctor coming to the rescue in a way that (as far as he knows) will leave him stranded in the 18th century and Mickey and Rose on a space station, and the ‘shipping question. As to the former, given that I’ve now seen the man letting himself transported into a freakin’ Black Hole from which he would not have escaped and had not the slightest idea how to escape from, had not the calvary arrived later, I didn’t expect him to do anything else. He wouldn’t let the automatons behead Madame de Pompadour and cannibalize much of the French court, and there was no one else at hand who could have stopped this. What’s more, I think he would have done the same if it had been Louis XV whose head the automatons wanted (i.e. someone he had no feelings for) instead of Reinette. Doesn’t mean rescuing Reinette wasn’t a major incentive as well. Did he consider what would happen to Rose and Mickey next? Not at that moment, no, I don’t think so, but I don’t think he believed, or had reason to believe, they’d be stuck on the station. Time is fluid to him. Given that One visited Paris a measily few decades later, he could have pinched the TARDIS from his earlier self, used it to transport himself to the space station right after he left it, and send it back without having to encounter an earlier incarnation again (while One, Ian and Barbara and Susan were gallivanting about).
All this being said: I felt for Rose when he rode through the mirror. (The mirror, smashing; or, the danger of what happens if you go from watcher and observer of the story to interacting with the personnel.) She had to feel suckerpunched, not just because of the “are we stuck on this space station now?” question (btw, this once more underlines the power imbalance between the Doctor and any companions who aren’t timelords and –ladies themselves), but because so shortly after meeting Sarah Jane, it was impossible not to see this as just what he had said would not happen: him leaving her behind. Poor Rose.
On the brighter side of things, she and Mickey are so relaxed and comfortable with each other (which, aside from her reaction to him joining the TARDIS, they also were in School Reunion) that I’m starting to wonder whether they might not end up together after all. Say what you want, Mickey loves her and after that one instant of panic in Rose always came through for her when she needed him. (Mickey is starting to remind me of an odd mixture of Xander and early Wesley.)
Lastly: though the Doctor’s remark about the Queen and the Mistress getting along just fine on one level can be taken as male naivete he is actually correct in this instance. Madame de Pompadour, clever woman that she was, made a point of winning the Queen over as well, showing her deference and politeness, never joining in the mockery of the Queen’s Polish background and manners. As a result, the Queen infinitely preferred her to her various rivals – and being the King’s maitresse en titre was the most envied position the country had for a woman, so she had many – and never tried to use her own influence, via her relations, against her.
(Compare and contrast: Louis XV.’s other famous mistress, Madame du Barry, never bothred cultivating anyone, was hated by his daughters and even more so by the girl who married his grandson, Marie Antoinette. The war between the young Marie Antoinette and la Dubarry became legendary and was only ended when after much pressure, Marie Antoinette addressed the King’s mistress with a single sentence: “There are many people at Versailles today, aren’t there?”)
And the tv times, they are changing. I loved the non-judgmental matter of fact way the episode showed Reinette determined to become the King’s mistress before she ever met him. Which is historically true (in fact, her mother basically trained her from birth to become the King’s mistress one day), but show me the tv programm which wouldn’t have characterized her as an evil schemer because of this, instead of giving us the “Every woman in Paris knows your ambition” – “Every woman in Paris shares them” exchange. And the Doctor listening, somewhat wistful and amused instead of condemming.
Speaking of the Doctor, I'm getting more fond of Ten every week. And David Tennant. Thanks to Resurrection of the Daleks, I've now seen adventures of all incarnations of the Time Lord so far, and still have so much catching up to do that I wouldn't even dare to go for a ranking beyond stating that Seven remains my favourite. Still, if I had to choose between more adventures with Nine and more adventures with Ten, I suspect I'd pick Ten. Not sure yet why, though.
Next week: bring on the Cybermen!
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no subject
Date: 2006-05-09 02:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-09 02:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-09 02:52 pm (UTC)Doy.
They episode had some good moments, but so far, I'm just really underwhelmed by this season! I miss Nine.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-09 03:04 pm (UTC)However, I'll quote
I can see, intellectually, how this must be a shock if all you have to go on is Eccleston. It's just that for the people who have been around a while, or caught up with some other Doctors ... er, not so much. The Doctor is, all things considered, usually a happy person in general. He enjoys running around the universe with nubile humans saving planets from evil robots. Nine had excellent reason to be less than his cheery self, but Ten is a bit of a return to normal there. (Looking back, Seven is noticable for being more melancholy than the others. I mean, the rest can be bad tempered and Three spends the first part of his tenure pissed off at being exiled, but that's not the same thing.) All the Doctors have moments of pain and sadness, but those feelings don't dominate them.
I think that's another big divide between Old School and New School fans, actually. It's not only that Old School fans have seen Doctors and companions come and go, but that the Old School had an idea of what the Doctor was like in mind before Eccleston turned up. (I don't think it matters much how long before, either. I started watching the classic series regularly about two years ago, when the wheels of the revival were already in motion, but I'd seen enough by the time it hit the screens to have all sorts of firm opinons. There is a reason the icon on your left says what it does.) And Old School fandom does not see the Doctor as a fundamentally damaged character. His current psychological state(s) are the result of a terrible thing that happpened to him relatievley recently in his personal history, not the original status quo.
End of Andraste's take on this. Nostalgia on the time issue (http://nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com/1022672.html#cutid2), and on the stupid actions of the (ninth) Doctor's for Rose (http://nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com/1021782.html#cutid1), which surpass this week's any time in degrees of foolishness.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-09 05:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-09 03:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-09 03:08 pm (UTC);-)
Date: 2006-05-09 05:44 pm (UTC)BLASPHEMY! TREASON! Will unfriend you right after this comment!
No, of course not ;-)
(As even I am willing to admit that Resurrection of the Daleks is not exactly Davison's strongest episode...)
If you ever decide to give Five, Tegan and Turlough another try, my advice would be either Enlightenment or Frontios. Much more character interaction, better scripts, higher mystery and fun factor.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-09 07:59 pm (UTC)Seriously, I will give Five, Tegan and Turlough another try. Each Doctor has episodes where he and his companions just aren't served well. I mean, if I had watched The Long Game as my introduction to Nine, I would have disliked both him and Rose intently.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-09 06:37 pm (UTC)Nice idea on the social parallels between the robots and French aristocrats - haven't seen anyone come up with it before but it really works.
Small canon correction - he couldn't use One's TARDIS from The Reign of Terror because at that time the TARDIS was truly uncontrollable due to various malfunctions. The Time Lords don't merely restore the Doctor's ability to travel in Three Doctors but also service the TARDIS so that it can actually be steered.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-09 08:04 pm (UTC)The Time Lords don't merely restore the Doctor's ability to travel in Three Doctors but also service the TARDIS so that it can actually be steered.
Ah, I had not known that. BTW, as Susan's comment in An Unearthly Child would indicate this adventure is in fact the first one where the TARDIS doesn't change outward shape but stays a police box, do we ever find out why?
no subject
Date: 2006-05-09 08:26 pm (UTC)Come to think of it, these hints may make you want to watch Attack of the Cybermen. Don't. It's Resurrection of the Daleks all over again, with pointless continuity references to Troughton Cyberman stories instead of plot, much torture, and Colin Baker's Doctor at his most charmlessly rude and thuggish.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-09 08:53 pm (UTC)It wasn't, actually. If anything, Buffy pinched it from Who, although I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt about having come up with it independently. :) But the line "I'm what monsters have nightmares about" originally appeared in one of the Doctor Who novels, well before Buffy said it. Steven Moffat on the commentary track for GitF (currently up on the BBC website) cheerfully confesses to having lifted it from Paul Cornell, who wrote the book in question.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-10 04:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-09 09:32 pm (UTC)KateLeMonkey: and what was the plot hole you saw in "The Girl In The Fireplace"? We couldn't figure it out.
RozKaveney: How did the horse get on the starship? And escape being used by the robots for parts?
KateLeMonkey: ahhhh...
RozKaveney: Answer. Future Doctor put it there, both because Present Doctor is going to need it, and as clue to Future Doctor that there is a temporal paradox here that does not worry the bats.
KateLeMonkey: Ahahahaha.
RozKaveney: Which means he can cut in, save Reinette on her death bed, and persuade the King to get what revenge he needs by lying to Present Doctor when he turns up.
RozKaveney: Reinette runs away to the stars with him.
KateLeMonkey: See, our plot hole was that if the Doctor going through the giant mirror would cause the connection to be interrupted, then how did the robots get into Versailles at that time in the first place?
RozKaveney: Mickey, Rose and Jack can go stuff themselves
RozKaveney: Because there is a distinction between windows and portals.
KateLeMonkey: yeah, but where was the portal?
RozKaveney: Oh, who knows?
KateLeMonkey: (I'm being pedantic. I'm trying to work out the time wackiness in this story I'm writing, so it makes me pedantic as hell)
RozKaveney: There was one
RozKaveney: Apart from the one the Doctor and Rose used in the bedroom
RozKaveney: It was in the cupboard under the stairs with the gasmeter
KateLeMonkey: hmmm...
KateLeMonkey: I always thought the horse was there because the robots were going to ride it into the gardens.
RozKaveney: Only one robot could fit on a horse
no subject
Date: 2006-05-10 06:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-10 09:50 am (UTC)Oh, I thought the point was that the robots had locked the portal to keep the Doctor out, assuming he'd take too long working out how to unlock it (in which case, though, it would probably still have worke afterwards) rather than forcing it. Essentially a repeat of the "we are in a car" solution to the locked door the previous week.
I thought it was more problematic that they could hear Mme de P calling for help through the fireplace portal when it was supposed to be offline because she'd moved it to Versailles.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-10 08:00 am (UTC)The various windows opening to different periods of her life were a great metaphor for tv storytelling, because of course we do what the Doctor does here, experience crucial moments with our tv characters and come to care for them, in some cases even fall in love.
*slaps forehead* Yes, of course! I knew it was a story about television (all those magic doors and peering through little screens), but hadn't consciously connected all the dots. Thank you for that!
Resurrection of the Daleks is over-rated, I think, although it does do menace pretty well. I was gutted by Tegan's departure as a kid.