Doctor Who 5/31.07 Amy's Choice
May. 16th, 2010 07:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakAka the first non-Moffat episode this season I'm happy with, and boy, am I relieved about that.
It's also the first episode by a writer not employed during the RTD years (or before, so wiki tells me when I checked to be sure), new to the Whoverse, and the first compliment I'd like to pay is that he simultanously manages to feel fresh and well versed in continuity. Most important after last week, though, he made me feel Rory/Amy, and Amy as Amy, not Generic Companion #2454. I was a bit uneasy about the choice in question being presented as Rory = Dull "Normal" Life, Doctor = Adventurous Life (or between two men at all, and them being associated with only one lifestyle), but from the moment Amy faked out the Doctor with "the baby is coming", I was at ease. Why? Because a) it was an Amy, not a generic companion thing to do - Eleventh Hour established Amy's tendency to lie, and lie convincingly, which is adressed here and by Rory later - and b) it was a great put-down of "normal life = nightmare". In fact, both dream worlds - the village and the TARDIS - turned out to be nightmares, just in different ways.
Still on Amy, not only did this episode address the elephant (ahem) in the room unaddressed last week, in more than one way, and in conversations with Rory instead neither of them talking to each other - that she ran away the night before her wedding - but specifically connected it with the childhood/growing up thing other people have already commented on. You can be a child forever, but only if you keep running away. Which is not to say that marrying is the only way to grow up, of course (cancelling a wedding can be as well, as long as you face the music and talk about it, i.e. make a decision instead of running away from said decision). And Karen really sold me on Amy's realisation that she does love Rory and does want to spend her life with him.
Now, in terms of the Doctor's psyche: I was starting to have my suspicions when we had the first collection of pensioneers in the village. Outside of Moffat's own Children in Need sketch Time Crash, where Ten remarked on being in old bodies when being young in order to be impressive pre- Five, DW hasn't really addressed the implications the roughly reverse physicality of the Doctor's appearance versus actual age could have. What Nye makes of it here and what he lets the Dreamlord say connects to that "the old man picking up young people in order to stay young". There is something to it (though it simplifies and leaves out the Doctor's ability to connect with old characters like Wilf, human Yana or Adelaide pre-Time Lord Victorious moment), and so of course the "monsters" in one dream world are in the form of age, while in the other it's the TARDIS (home, beloved ship and means of eternal escape) turning to ice and a tomb for himself and his friends. And then there's the Dreamlord; DW has played with the concept of the Doctor's darker side embodied by a character before. Originally, that's who the Master was supposed to be, literally, not just symbolically, though the combination of Roger Delgado's untimely death and a change of Doctors meant the show never went that Jungian on screen. And then there was the Valeyard in Trial of a Time Lord, who was again supposed to be literally an amalgation of the Doctor's negative traits but something a let down as in demeanour and plan he was your avaraga muwahhahaing supervillain. Here, Nye comes up with something more convincing. The Dreamlord's scenes with Amy had not a little of Seven in them, specifically Seven in his manipulative pushing-Ace-to-face-something vein, and of course the costume and the different roles in village world - doctor, bus driver, shop owner - while commenting non-stop on the Doctor's short comings, that kind of dark whimsey, together with "there is just one person in the universe who hates me as much as you do" was a dead givaway. (Unless, dear viewer, you thought Moffat would bring back the Master this early after his last appearance and in an episode not written by himself.) It really worked for me where the Valyard didn't.
Unexpected twist shouldn't have been unexpected: that the TARDIS was another dreamscape. I mean, I read Neil Gaiman, plus the Dreamlord simply conceding defeat was an obvious hint it wasn't over, and I did expect some follow up, but the Doctor's action-plus-explanation still caught me by surprise and made me slap my head in an "of course!" manner.
Trivia: you know, Nye and Moffat, not that I don't appreciate the continuing Elizabeth I. references, but really, when we talk about the Doctor's fondness for redheads, would it have been too much to bring up the obvious one, i.e. DONNA?!?
Lastly: since the matter of the Doctor's name was brought up again to remind viewers, I think thatskywaterblue's speculation that he'll use his name to deal with the cracks in the universe in the season finale is in the right direction (though we the viewers won't hear it, because it's one of those things the show will never reveal, along with the reason why the Doctor first left Gallifrey, or the original Doctor/Master fallout). (Time of Angels also reminded viewers of the power of the Gallifreyan language, and there is that fanon about the Doctor having used his name to seal the rift in the Medusa Cascade, based on the Master's remark about the Doctor having closed said rift on his own in Last of the Time Lords and "your true name is hidden in the hairs of Medusa herself" in Fires of Pompeii.) Considering River knows his name, otoh, it might not be he, personally, who uses it...
It's also the first episode by a writer not employed during the RTD years (or before, so wiki tells me when I checked to be sure), new to the Whoverse, and the first compliment I'd like to pay is that he simultanously manages to feel fresh and well versed in continuity. Most important after last week, though, he made me feel Rory/Amy, and Amy as Amy, not Generic Companion #2454. I was a bit uneasy about the choice in question being presented as Rory = Dull "Normal" Life, Doctor = Adventurous Life (or between two men at all, and them being associated with only one lifestyle), but from the moment Amy faked out the Doctor with "the baby is coming", I was at ease. Why? Because a) it was an Amy, not a generic companion thing to do - Eleventh Hour established Amy's tendency to lie, and lie convincingly, which is adressed here and by Rory later - and b) it was a great put-down of "normal life = nightmare". In fact, both dream worlds - the village and the TARDIS - turned out to be nightmares, just in different ways.
Still on Amy, not only did this episode address the elephant (ahem) in the room unaddressed last week, in more than one way, and in conversations with Rory instead neither of them talking to each other - that she ran away the night before her wedding - but specifically connected it with the childhood/growing up thing other people have already commented on. You can be a child forever, but only if you keep running away. Which is not to say that marrying is the only way to grow up, of course (cancelling a wedding can be as well, as long as you face the music and talk about it, i.e. make a decision instead of running away from said decision). And Karen really sold me on Amy's realisation that she does love Rory and does want to spend her life with him.
Now, in terms of the Doctor's psyche: I was starting to have my suspicions when we had the first collection of pensioneers in the village. Outside of Moffat's own Children in Need sketch Time Crash, where Ten remarked on being in old bodies when being young in order to be impressive pre- Five, DW hasn't really addressed the implications the roughly reverse physicality of the Doctor's appearance versus actual age could have. What Nye makes of it here and what he lets the Dreamlord say connects to that "the old man picking up young people in order to stay young". There is something to it (though it simplifies and leaves out the Doctor's ability to connect with old characters like Wilf, human Yana or Adelaide pre-Time Lord Victorious moment), and so of course the "monsters" in one dream world are in the form of age, while in the other it's the TARDIS (home, beloved ship and means of eternal escape) turning to ice and a tomb for himself and his friends. And then there's the Dreamlord; DW has played with the concept of the Doctor's darker side embodied by a character before. Originally, that's who the Master was supposed to be, literally, not just symbolically, though the combination of Roger Delgado's untimely death and a change of Doctors meant the show never went that Jungian on screen. And then there was the Valeyard in Trial of a Time Lord, who was again supposed to be literally an amalgation of the Doctor's negative traits but something a let down as in demeanour and plan he was your avaraga muwahhahaing supervillain. Here, Nye comes up with something more convincing. The Dreamlord's scenes with Amy had not a little of Seven in them, specifically Seven in his manipulative pushing-Ace-to-face-something vein, and of course the costume and the different roles in village world - doctor, bus driver, shop owner - while commenting non-stop on the Doctor's short comings, that kind of dark whimsey, together with "there is just one person in the universe who hates me as much as you do" was a dead givaway. (Unless, dear viewer, you thought Moffat would bring back the Master this early after his last appearance and in an episode not written by himself.) It really worked for me where the Valyard didn't.
Unexpected twist shouldn't have been unexpected: that the TARDIS was another dreamscape. I mean, I read Neil Gaiman, plus the Dreamlord simply conceding defeat was an obvious hint it wasn't over, and I did expect some follow up, but the Doctor's action-plus-explanation still caught me by surprise and made me slap my head in an "of course!" manner.
Trivia: you know, Nye and Moffat, not that I don't appreciate the continuing Elizabeth I. references, but really, when we talk about the Doctor's fondness for redheads, would it have been too much to bring up the obvious one, i.e. DONNA?!?
Lastly: since the matter of the Doctor's name was brought up again to remind viewers, I think that
skywaterblue's speculation that he'll use his name to deal with the cracks in the universe in the season finale is in the right direction (though we the viewers won't hear it, because it's one of those things the show will never reveal, along with the reason why the Doctor first left Gallifrey, or the original Doctor/Master fallout). (Time of Angels also reminded viewers of the power of the Gallifreyan language, and there is that fanon about the Doctor having used his name to seal the rift in the Medusa Cascade, based on the Master's remark about the Doctor having closed said rift on his own in Last of the Time Lords and "your true name is hidden in the hairs of Medusa herself" in Fires of Pompeii.) Considering River knows his name, otoh, it might not be he, personally, who uses it...
