Doctor Who 4/30.11 Turn Left
Jun. 22nd, 2008 01:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which Catherine Tate rocks the house, and viewers of The Sarah Jane Adventures have a distinct advantage.
Seriously, though, anyone not having watched SJA is bound to wonder what on Earth or Gallifrey the Doctor means when he says the beetle was "one of the Trickster's brigade" in the last scene. Ever since Whatever happened to Sarah Jane aired there has been speculation about the impact of that episode on DW, about whether or not the Trickster would make true of his threat to go after the Doctor to remove him from the timeline. Turns out he does. (This is me assuming the "soothsayer" did not randomly pick Donna, which seems to be a given.) Which goes to show: SJA, season 1, pwns Torchwood, season 1, in terms of importance to the parent show.*g*
On to the episode itself. In my review of the audio Doctor Who Unbound: Sympathy for the Devil, I said that "what if...?" stories which remove the hero of a show from the equation - run the risk of two extremes if not done well. One extreme would be to make everyone else look incompetent/ weak/ too flawed in order to emphasize the hero/heroine's importance; that's the case for the Highlander finale To Be /Not to Be. The other extreme, though I can't think of an example, would be to show that everything is going on just dandy, in which case you make your central character look a bit superfluous to the grand scheme of things. Both that audio, and now Turn Left manage to avoid these and run a good balance. Without the Doctor, people like Sarah Jane and her friends, and Jack and his team do manage to save Earth, but at a much, much higher body count, and without being able to prevent horrid long term consequences. (On the other hand, without the Doctor, there is no evil Time Lord making Earth his punching back to get back at his ex boyfriend. Yana presumably dies peaceful and not knowing who he used to be at the end of the universe. Makes sense. The Doctor and the Master always sort of depended on each other's existence.)
Obviously, this episode was rife with continuity callbacks, both relating to Donna and to Rose. I loved even the subtle ones like the Christmas songs used, which were indeed the ones from Runaway Bride and Voyage of the Damned, respectively. Rose slightly altering the Doctor's quote from Father's Day, where he said it about her father Pete (who needed to die to preserve the timeline): "One ordinary person is the most important being in the whole of creation." Oliver Morgenstern giving interviews again, as he did at the end of Smith and Jones, but in oh such a different state.
Most of all, we saw Donna in all her aspects. At the start, as a happy traveller through the universe with her best friend (loved her and the Doctor sharing a meal). Then Donna as she used to be in Runaway Bride, completely oblivious to the big picture (remember, she missed the first Christmas Invasion due to a hangover and the Cybermen due to scuba-diving in Spain) but not without compassion, trying to comfort the strange blonde girl who obviously reacts to the name "the Doctor" in a distressed fashion before the blonde girl starts to freak her out by looking around her. (This reminds me of the rooftop scene in The Runaway Bride.) Then we get Donna steadily worn out by the increasingly dire world but still not giving up, trying again to find a job, some good luck, somewhere, and becoming increasingly attuned to her strange occasional visitor, until she is ready to save the world. We even get a reversal/parallel of Donna's original reaction to the TARDIS. So far, she's the only character to first see the TARDIS from the inside and only later from the outside, which shocked her and enhanced her understandable freak-out even more; in this Alt!verse, she encounters it the "normal" way around, and it provides a rare moment of wonder and joy in her dark world. (It also provokes Rose's first genuine smile in the episode. More about Rose and the role she plays later.) Yet for the viewer, there is also distress because this is clearly the TARDIS dying (great effect achieved by simply altering the lightning). The two scenes that impressed me most, acting wise, were Donna in the circle; Catherine Tate completely sold me on the fear Donna feels about the beetle, the reaching out to Rose, the gathering of strength and hope only to become aware via Rose's expression that this will only be achieved by death; and Donna and her mother in the night, talking to each other. Donna and Sylvia have a number of quiet scenes in addition to the usual nagging routine in this episode which is much appreciated, and the one I mean is just heartbreaking as they whisper about dead friends, and Donna is so determined that things will be better, hopes so hard, but Sylvia can't anymore, not in a malicious way, just terribly sad when asking "but what if this never changes". (Jacqueline King was great throughout the episode, too, going from the "your Dad would have loved this" and the Christmas morning warmth before the Titanic crashes to the unblinking depression in her final scene.)
And while we're talking great acting, let's hear it for Bernard Cribbins. Wilf is always lovable, but here he got to do comedy (leading the shanty singing) and tragedy both, and his expression during the deportation/"labour camp" scene broke my heart. "It's happening again." Oh, and btw, go, episode, for coming up with a Britain-turns-fascist scenario that doesn't involve "what if Hitler won?" or "alien takeover" but horrible economy caused by a series of catastrophes. Way more plausible and uncomfortable. Especially since, as Sylvia points out, as opposed to the usual depiction of WWII scenarios there is no "enemy" to find and to blame for this state of affairs. No solution in sight by overthrowing an evil dictator.
Now, Rose. Who basically had the narrative role of the Doctor in this episode, the mysterious stranger popping up at different times to deliver cryptic warnings, influence things (the raffle) if they can't be prevented outright, doesn't say her name (the power of names again) and even gets some of the same lines. "I told you not to salute." "You're brilliant." Given she's wearing the same outfit throughout as Donna points out, I'm assuming my earlier guess that Rose does all of this backwards (including her attempted warnings in the "normal" timeline), from a point of the future where she knows how this will turn out, is true. Which is of course the original Bad Wolf scenario. And may I say, greeeeat ending. Because I was fooled and pretty sure the two words Rose said would be "Davros lives" or something like that. So - "Bad Wolf", huh? One of the arguable plotholes of season 1/27 was: if the Time War could have been ended by someone opening a TARDIS and merging with her, why didn't any of the Time Lords do that? Horrible consequences would be one explanation. I mean, the Doctor says in Utopia that a Time Lord doing this would become "a vengeful god", wereas Rose due to her humanity and due to the fact her merging with the TARDIS was ended in time escaped that fate. Otoh, we had the throwaway line in s2 that "there is still something of the wolf in you". So: in s1, Rose could only throw the Bad Wolf references backwards in time when she was in her merged state. Currently, the TARDIS is definitely un-merged. But Rose is clearly different. Part of it is her being older, more mature, sure, but I think the fact she avoids naming herself as Rose Tyler isn't just because she can. Perhaps whatever the "darkness" is that threatens to engulf all the universes activated the remnants of what was once transformed in Rose, which is one reason why she can now travel or at least project between the universes, but it also comes at a price. Perhaps I've watched certain films too often, but is it possible that Rose is in fact dead and her last act before dying was throwing all those projections backwards so she can help save the universe via contacting Donna and the Doctor?
Favourite Rose moment: as mentioned before, her telling Donna to look into the TARDIS, and reliving the wonder of that moment through Donna. It's a complete turnaround, and in a sense a complete journey, from the young Rose who was shown time and space by the Doctor.
Favourite Donna moment: too many to count, and some already named. "You can't change the universe by shouting at it." "No, but I can try." would be another. Or her brief "whee!" moment of pure giddy joy when realizing she did indeed travel in time before the seriousness of the situation kicks in again. Her expression when a depressed Sylvia says "yes" to her "disappointment" statement. And in a complimentary scene to the last episode, where the Doctor was the one needing the hug, this time it's Donna, hugging him. "The Doctor and Donna Noble, both", necessary to save the universe, that is. I like and approve.
Trivia: I like the female UNIT commander. A call back to Brambera? Also, again the depiction in New Who of UNIT is in tune with Old Who UNIT, making the Torchwood stuff even more of an illogical aberration.
Lastly: you know, when the Doctor, thinking she wants to leave him, told Donna in "The Sontaran Strategem": "You saved my life in so many ways"? That statement just got another layer. There are two possibilities regarding his demise in a Donna-less Raccnoss encounter: either he kept regenerating and drowning under water until all regenerations were used up, or he did just what the Master does at the end of Last of the Time Lords - he deliberately did not regenerate. Given that Ten goes suicidal at least once in season 3 (with the Daleks - "just kill me!" anyone?), there is a distinct possibility that when he dispensed judgment on the Raccnoss with that terrifying blank expression and didn't have Donna to stop him, snap him out of it and give him someone else to save from impending drowning, he thought he might as well judge himself while he was at it and just ended it.
Seriously, though, anyone not having watched SJA is bound to wonder what on Earth or Gallifrey the Doctor means when he says the beetle was "one of the Trickster's brigade" in the last scene. Ever since Whatever happened to Sarah Jane aired there has been speculation about the impact of that episode on DW, about whether or not the Trickster would make true of his threat to go after the Doctor to remove him from the timeline. Turns out he does. (This is me assuming the "soothsayer" did not randomly pick Donna, which seems to be a given.) Which goes to show: SJA, season 1, pwns Torchwood, season 1, in terms of importance to the parent show.*g*
On to the episode itself. In my review of the audio Doctor Who Unbound: Sympathy for the Devil, I said that "what if...?" stories which remove the hero of a show from the equation - run the risk of two extremes if not done well. One extreme would be to make everyone else look incompetent/ weak/ too flawed in order to emphasize the hero/heroine's importance; that's the case for the Highlander finale To Be /Not to Be. The other extreme, though I can't think of an example, would be to show that everything is going on just dandy, in which case you make your central character look a bit superfluous to the grand scheme of things. Both that audio, and now Turn Left manage to avoid these and run a good balance. Without the Doctor, people like Sarah Jane and her friends, and Jack and his team do manage to save Earth, but at a much, much higher body count, and without being able to prevent horrid long term consequences. (On the other hand, without the Doctor, there is no evil Time Lord making Earth his punching back to get back at his ex boyfriend. Yana presumably dies peaceful and not knowing who he used to be at the end of the universe. Makes sense. The Doctor and the Master always sort of depended on each other's existence.)
Obviously, this episode was rife with continuity callbacks, both relating to Donna and to Rose. I loved even the subtle ones like the Christmas songs used, which were indeed the ones from Runaway Bride and Voyage of the Damned, respectively. Rose slightly altering the Doctor's quote from Father's Day, where he said it about her father Pete (who needed to die to preserve the timeline): "One ordinary person is the most important being in the whole of creation." Oliver Morgenstern giving interviews again, as he did at the end of Smith and Jones, but in oh such a different state.
Most of all, we saw Donna in all her aspects. At the start, as a happy traveller through the universe with her best friend (loved her and the Doctor sharing a meal). Then Donna as she used to be in Runaway Bride, completely oblivious to the big picture (remember, she missed the first Christmas Invasion due to a hangover and the Cybermen due to scuba-diving in Spain) but not without compassion, trying to comfort the strange blonde girl who obviously reacts to the name "the Doctor" in a distressed fashion before the blonde girl starts to freak her out by looking around her. (This reminds me of the rooftop scene in The Runaway Bride.) Then we get Donna steadily worn out by the increasingly dire world but still not giving up, trying again to find a job, some good luck, somewhere, and becoming increasingly attuned to her strange occasional visitor, until she is ready to save the world. We even get a reversal/parallel of Donna's original reaction to the TARDIS. So far, she's the only character to first see the TARDIS from the inside and only later from the outside, which shocked her and enhanced her understandable freak-out even more; in this Alt!verse, she encounters it the "normal" way around, and it provides a rare moment of wonder and joy in her dark world. (It also provokes Rose's first genuine smile in the episode. More about Rose and the role she plays later.) Yet for the viewer, there is also distress because this is clearly the TARDIS dying (great effect achieved by simply altering the lightning). The two scenes that impressed me most, acting wise, were Donna in the circle; Catherine Tate completely sold me on the fear Donna feels about the beetle, the reaching out to Rose, the gathering of strength and hope only to become aware via Rose's expression that this will only be achieved by death; and Donna and her mother in the night, talking to each other. Donna and Sylvia have a number of quiet scenes in addition to the usual nagging routine in this episode which is much appreciated, and the one I mean is just heartbreaking as they whisper about dead friends, and Donna is so determined that things will be better, hopes so hard, but Sylvia can't anymore, not in a malicious way, just terribly sad when asking "but what if this never changes". (Jacqueline King was great throughout the episode, too, going from the "your Dad would have loved this" and the Christmas morning warmth before the Titanic crashes to the unblinking depression in her final scene.)
And while we're talking great acting, let's hear it for Bernard Cribbins. Wilf is always lovable, but here he got to do comedy (leading the shanty singing) and tragedy both, and his expression during the deportation/"labour camp" scene broke my heart. "It's happening again." Oh, and btw, go, episode, for coming up with a Britain-turns-fascist scenario that doesn't involve "what if Hitler won?" or "alien takeover" but horrible economy caused by a series of catastrophes. Way more plausible and uncomfortable. Especially since, as Sylvia points out, as opposed to the usual depiction of WWII scenarios there is no "enemy" to find and to blame for this state of affairs. No solution in sight by overthrowing an evil dictator.
Now, Rose. Who basically had the narrative role of the Doctor in this episode, the mysterious stranger popping up at different times to deliver cryptic warnings, influence things (the raffle) if they can't be prevented outright, doesn't say her name (the power of names again) and even gets some of the same lines. "I told you not to salute." "You're brilliant." Given she's wearing the same outfit throughout as Donna points out, I'm assuming my earlier guess that Rose does all of this backwards (including her attempted warnings in the "normal" timeline), from a point of the future where she knows how this will turn out, is true. Which is of course the original Bad Wolf scenario. And may I say, greeeeat ending. Because I was fooled and pretty sure the two words Rose said would be "Davros lives" or something like that. So - "Bad Wolf", huh? One of the arguable plotholes of season 1/27 was: if the Time War could have been ended by someone opening a TARDIS and merging with her, why didn't any of the Time Lords do that? Horrible consequences would be one explanation. I mean, the Doctor says in Utopia that a Time Lord doing this would become "a vengeful god", wereas Rose due to her humanity and due to the fact her merging with the TARDIS was ended in time escaped that fate. Otoh, we had the throwaway line in s2 that "there is still something of the wolf in you". So: in s1, Rose could only throw the Bad Wolf references backwards in time when she was in her merged state. Currently, the TARDIS is definitely un-merged. But Rose is clearly different. Part of it is her being older, more mature, sure, but I think the fact she avoids naming herself as Rose Tyler isn't just because she can. Perhaps whatever the "darkness" is that threatens to engulf all the universes activated the remnants of what was once transformed in Rose, which is one reason why she can now travel or at least project between the universes, but it also comes at a price. Perhaps I've watched certain films too often, but is it possible that Rose is in fact dead and her last act before dying was throwing all those projections backwards so she can help save the universe via contacting Donna and the Doctor?
Favourite Rose moment: as mentioned before, her telling Donna to look into the TARDIS, and reliving the wonder of that moment through Donna. It's a complete turnaround, and in a sense a complete journey, from the young Rose who was shown time and space by the Doctor.
Favourite Donna moment: too many to count, and some already named. "You can't change the universe by shouting at it." "No, but I can try." would be another. Or her brief "whee!" moment of pure giddy joy when realizing she did indeed travel in time before the seriousness of the situation kicks in again. Her expression when a depressed Sylvia says "yes" to her "disappointment" statement. And in a complimentary scene to the last episode, where the Doctor was the one needing the hug, this time it's Donna, hugging him. "The Doctor and Donna Noble, both", necessary to save the universe, that is. I like and approve.
Trivia: I like the female UNIT commander. A call back to Brambera? Also, again the depiction in New Who of UNIT is in tune with Old Who UNIT, making the Torchwood stuff even more of an illogical aberration.
Lastly: you know, when the Doctor, thinking she wants to leave him, told Donna in "The Sontaran Strategem": "You saved my life in so many ways"? That statement just got another layer. There are two possibilities regarding his demise in a Donna-less Raccnoss encounter: either he kept regenerating and drowning under water until all regenerations were used up, or he did just what the Master does at the end of Last of the Time Lords - he deliberately did not regenerate. Given that Ten goes suicidal at least once in season 3 (with the Daleks - "just kill me!" anyone?), there is a distinct possibility that when he dispensed judgment on the Raccnoss with that terrifying blank expression and didn't have Donna to stop him, snap him out of it and give him someone else to save from impending drowning, he thought he might as well judge himself while he was at it and just ended it.
