Doctor Who 6.12 Closing Time

[selenak]

Last season's episode The Lodger, to which this one is a sequel, was a bit too cutesy for me (and made me feel the frustration of not liking something everyone squeed over, which is almost as bad as squeeing over something many people dislike), not to mention that the treatment of a female character was at least questionable. This episode, otoh, I really liked. The balance of sweet, sour and silly worked for me. Basically: The Lodger was marsh mallows, Closing Time is an energy bar. So to speak.



Also I liked it much better than the last episode featuring a father and a child which conveniently kept the mother away (aka the one with the dollhouse), because Sophie needing a weekend break worked for me, plus it did make storytelling sense. Not to mention that the placement of the episode directly after The Girl Who Waited and The God Complex was wise in terms of emotional relief without feeling out of order, because it very much continued to address the same themes but showed the flipside (or should that be the teddy bear Craig side). (BTW I'm with andraste: yes, the damage the Doctor can do to his companions was worth investigating, but we have been doing so since 2005, and after this season, I really hope the subject will be given a break for a while because if you look at the overall fate of companions in decades of show history, most of them were of better, not worse for the Doctor's presence in their lives.)

Considering a competent female character barely has to appear before people screech Mary Sue! these days, I'm a bit cautious in phrasing this, but let me put it this way: the suspicion Craig is to Gareth Roberts what Vince Tyler (from Queer as Folk, original version) was to RTD arises. I don't mean this negatively. Craig is very endearing, and it says something about fandom's emphasis on looks that he hasn't been slashed with the Doctor ten times over, whereas characters who appeared five minutes or so but were thin and pretty have. (Sidenote: I think the only heavy male character whom both the show and the fandom treated as material for shipping and as sexy was Robbie Coltrane's Fitz in Cracker; yes, Hagrid had a sex life once, Potter film fans, and with Lily, no less. Though I always was more intrigued by Fitz' relationship with his wife Judith than the one with Geraldine Sommerville's Penhaligion.) Mind you, I don't slash them, either, but I love that the show lets people make the same assumption about Craig and the Doctor here that the people made about the Doctor and several of his female companions, and that Craig's objection when he thinks (with some reason - tsk, Eleven, as far as tactics for distraction go, that one blows your alibi of not noticing when people make a pass at you right out of the water) that the Doctor is coming on to him isn't "I'm not interested" but that he's married.

The running gag with Alfie aka Stormegeddon was both hysterical and didn't overstay its welcome because the whole Doctor-baby interaction was balanced by the awareness that he's a) aware he's about to die soon, and b) very conscious of the most recent variation of the I-endanger-my-companions lesson, even before Unexpected!Amy and Rory are sighted from a distance in a warehouse. (BTW: "The girl who got tired of waiting" as a campaign slogan was inspired, and so was the name of the perfume which is the smell of dust after rain as Amy found out from the TARDIS in Neil Gaiman's episode.) Craig as an example of a person who was both endangered and inspired by the Doctor, moving on to hero status in his own life, basically is both the companion story and the counter argument in short form.

Also: the whole humans = cute babies who make people like you equation by the Doctor works both as gag and truth, you know.

Cybermen: will never be as scary as they were in The Invasion, but such is life, and hey, my favourite part of Doomsday was always the brilliant comic relief scene, the bitching between Cybermen and Daleks which even RTD haters must admit was him at his DW fanboy best. So the way they're used here, or that Craig overcomes being Cyber-fied with the power of fatherly love, isn't a problem for me.

All in all: a welcome breather before the finale. Except for poor River at the end, of course. Being kidnapped by your old slave owners on the day you get your doctoral degree sucks, and I really hope there is more to that astronaut suit business because dammit, River is just too obvious!

Comments

[legionseagle]

I hope the father/child stuff over the last episodes may be priming us for a bait-and-switch like we saw with the opening of the Pandorica and as is foreshadowed in Amy's words to baby Melody about who's coming for her; namely that seeing River put into the suit is no clue whatsoever to who comes out of the suit and, secondly, that River's crime - "killing a good man, a hero to many" might just as easily refer to her killing Rory as the Doctor.

[selenak]

I've been more or less convinced Rory, not the Doctor, is the "good man" since a week or so after the half season finale. And the B5 precedent of switched astronaut suits makes me cling to a bait and switch with River, too.

[legionseagle]

I am confident the Moff will have read the Evil Overlord List.

"When I become an Evil Overlord my guards will all wear clear plexiglass visors...."

[meri]

Hadn't really thought of it before, but you're right there have been a lot of father/son duos with absent mothers this season. I had been paying more attention to the parent/child themes which include Amy and River in them. I have, however, really enjoyed the agency parents have (both fathers and mothers) after they have babies. I'm so used to the child becoming the focus of the narrative and parents existing only for them that it's nice to see struggling parents, parents who have fun, parents who need a break, and not getting demonized for it.

I was excited to see that Craig was not married. "It's only a piece of paper" It's probably easier to say that in places with public health care. My partner and I got married for lots of reasons and health insurance was one of them. People see this as unromantic but it's true and I've got a great partner AND good health insurance out of the deal.

I was pleased to see that he wanted to be a Daddy even if he was scared/didn't know how. I loved the "you'll know what to do" line. It's true that so many people and books say you'll figure it out but from every new parent I've ever talked to that's not true. Everything needs to be explained. Everyone needs help. It made me feel for Craig.

I'm unsurprised at the lack of Craig/Doctor but I'm a bitter old fan and I know that fandom really only has slash goggles between two "attractive" white men. Good thing there's so many on TV? Ugh.

[selenak]

Make that two "attractive" young white men, says the cynic who shipped Xavier/Magneto when they were played and drawn as two hot older men and can't help but notice how the number of stories suddenly multiplied astronomically as as soon as they were played by two young actors.

[andraste]

I also liked Closing Time more than The Lodger, for the reasons you cited and also because I'm so attached to the original comic strip version of the story that Gareth Roberts penned for Doctor Who Magazine. (It has Mickey in it instead of Craig.) The absent mother thing worked a lot better this time because it's a story specifically about Craig bonding with Alfie/Stormageddon. (He also doesn't find out that his son is an alien and then apparently not tell the kid's mother.)

Craig as an example of a person who was both endangered and inspired by the Doctor, moving on to hero status in his own life, basically is both the companion story and the counter argument in short form.

This - along with the Ponds cameo - is making me hopeful that this theme is going where I want it to go, and not into another season of angst. Hanging out with the Doctor is dangerous, but he leaves a trail of heroes (big and small) in his wake as well.

(Reposted to fix broken italics; sorry for the spam.)

[selenak]

Here's hoping for the theme going where I want it to go as well! Also, as kathyh reminded me, when the Doctor last visited Sarah Jane we got the delightful scene where Sarah and the kids talk about what happened to the other companions, and that's on screen affirmation many of them are doing very well indeed and are having great lives!