Doctor Who A Nightmare in Silver
May. 13th, 2013 07:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which I agree with what seems to have been the above cut lj consensus: not as good as The Doctor's Wife, but a fun adventure.
The kids - Angie and Arthur - gained personalities after their brief appearances before for this episode, which I hoped would happen, and if this were an American show, I would wonder whether one reason for the episode was to launch a book series of YA-tie-ins featuring them. (Not sure whether the BBC got around to that yet.) It was probably a wise decision to skip the part where Clara tells the Doctor she's been blackmailed and he agrees to take the kids out for a spin, and go straight to the adventure instead. Though if I were her, I'd go out with them to check whether the Doctor has in fact dropped them off at the right point in space and time at the ends. I mean, given his track record when with her so far, why would she assume that?
It's remotely related to a more general problem, which is that while Jeanne-Louise Coleman's performance is very endearing, Clara v.3 has not become quite real for me yet. Not just because she's the mystery the Doctor must solve instead of the pov through which we see the Doctor. I had a problem getting emotional grips on Amy as well until about two thirds into her first season (though in that case, I'm aware that most people on my fllist did not share that problem and loved and understood her right from the get go). Now I'm aware that saying "character X responds with an emotional and mind set as appropriate to the episode demands with no continuity or sense of what she's like between episodes" is delusionary in that none of the characters exist between episodes, really; they're all written to fit specific narrative purposes, and every word that comes out of their mouths is thought up by the episode writer and his/her editor (once upon a time, we did have a female scriptwriter in the DW team, albeit briefly). But there are Companions where I have not much trouble imagining what they're doing before and after their adventures, what their hobbies are, how they'd react if, say, finding themselves at some relations endless birthday party without the opportunity to leave, every day stuff like that, because their episodes managed to give me an impression of their personalities that went beyond whatever was required for the episode in question. I'm not there yet with Clara, I took ages to get there with Amy. (River Song was another character who was introduced as a mystery to be solved, but her personality was so larger than life vivid that her second appearance, the Angels two parter, did that to me. Which isn't to say you need larger than life for it to happen. See also: my fondness for Jo Grant. Who is many things, but not larger than life.)
I was hoping this episode would give me a better sense of Clara, not least because Neil Gaiman pulled off something similar for Elizabeth Lochley in the fifth season of Babylon 5 with the episode Day of the Dead. Until then, Lochley, not least because she was a last minute invention when Claudia Christian dropped out and hence there was no Ivanova, was generic tough female military type; in Day of the Dead, she gained a backstory, an emotional life, and JMS himself admitted he only realised who Lochley was when reading Neil Gaiman's script. Alas, no second such event for Clara, possibly because Gaiman was hindered by the way she needs to be a mystery (which wasn't the case with Elizabeth Lochley).
On to what the episode did give me. The delipatated fairground-in-space was pure Gaiman and very fitting for DW. So were the platoon consisting of soldiers who weren't really, and the Emperor who'd run off and hid under the nome de plume of Porridge. (Also, nice to see Warwick Davis again!) Incidentally, the Emperor is a good example of a character being brought to layered life with just a few lines, because he's by no means just an adorable fellow not wanting all that ceremony. I'm referring specifically to the moment when he remarks that he knows what that says about him but instead of feeling for the 300 000 billion dead people in the part of space that was destroyed during the last Cyber war, he feels sorry "for the sod who had to pull the trigger". (Due to the temporal distance, it can't have been himself, but he obviously is aware he may have to do something similar due to his position.) It's both privileging and seeing the death of millions as drama for one man's angst and being ruthlessly honest about it. (Not to mention the obvious show meta moment, what with the Time War and the Doctor as the man who pulled the trigger etc.) And in the end, of course, the planet with the 3000 resurrected Cybermen does get blown up, while the screen attention is on the Emperor and his personal dramedy.
The Doctor versus himself as the Cyper Planner was a great showcase for Matt Smith, who took it and ran with it, and simultanously a very fannish "what if?", i.e. what happens if the Doctor gets cyber-ized. And of course the whole "opponent laying traps for Doctor who is laying traps for him" has a pleasing Seventh Doctor echo, only this time it happens in the Doctor's mind and the opponent is himself not just in metaphor or imagery or courtesy of plot device.(Hello, Dream Lord.)
All in all: a good adventure, but now the season is almost over, and there hasn't been an episode yet which I'd call outstanding and best off DW etc, which is a pity. Not that there weren't good episodes, but you know what I mean - episodes that make you wish you could show them to everyone for their amazingness. Last season, the only one in that calibre was The Doctor's Wife. This season, there has been none.
The kids - Angie and Arthur - gained personalities after their brief appearances before for this episode, which I hoped would happen, and if this were an American show, I would wonder whether one reason for the episode was to launch a book series of YA-tie-ins featuring them. (Not sure whether the BBC got around to that yet.) It was probably a wise decision to skip the part where Clara tells the Doctor she's been blackmailed and he agrees to take the kids out for a spin, and go straight to the adventure instead. Though if I were her, I'd go out with them to check whether the Doctor has in fact dropped them off at the right point in space and time at the ends. I mean, given his track record when with her so far, why would she assume that?
It's remotely related to a more general problem, which is that while Jeanne-Louise Coleman's performance is very endearing, Clara v.3 has not become quite real for me yet. Not just because she's the mystery the Doctor must solve instead of the pov through which we see the Doctor. I had a problem getting emotional grips on Amy as well until about two thirds into her first season (though in that case, I'm aware that most people on my fllist did not share that problem and loved and understood her right from the get go). Now I'm aware that saying "character X responds with an emotional and mind set as appropriate to the episode demands with no continuity or sense of what she's like between episodes" is delusionary in that none of the characters exist between episodes, really; they're all written to fit specific narrative purposes, and every word that comes out of their mouths is thought up by the episode writer and his/her editor (once upon a time, we did have a female scriptwriter in the DW team, albeit briefly). But there are Companions where I have not much trouble imagining what they're doing before and after their adventures, what their hobbies are, how they'd react if, say, finding themselves at some relations endless birthday party without the opportunity to leave, every day stuff like that, because their episodes managed to give me an impression of their personalities that went beyond whatever was required for the episode in question. I'm not there yet with Clara, I took ages to get there with Amy. (River Song was another character who was introduced as a mystery to be solved, but her personality was so larger than life vivid that her second appearance, the Angels two parter, did that to me. Which isn't to say you need larger than life for it to happen. See also: my fondness for Jo Grant. Who is many things, but not larger than life.)
I was hoping this episode would give me a better sense of Clara, not least because Neil Gaiman pulled off something similar for Elizabeth Lochley in the fifth season of Babylon 5 with the episode Day of the Dead. Until then, Lochley, not least because she was a last minute invention when Claudia Christian dropped out and hence there was no Ivanova, was generic tough female military type; in Day of the Dead, she gained a backstory, an emotional life, and JMS himself admitted he only realised who Lochley was when reading Neil Gaiman's script. Alas, no second such event for Clara, possibly because Gaiman was hindered by the way she needs to be a mystery (which wasn't the case with Elizabeth Lochley).
On to what the episode did give me. The delipatated fairground-in-space was pure Gaiman and very fitting for DW. So were the platoon consisting of soldiers who weren't really, and the Emperor who'd run off and hid under the nome de plume of Porridge. (Also, nice to see Warwick Davis again!) Incidentally, the Emperor is a good example of a character being brought to layered life with just a few lines, because he's by no means just an adorable fellow not wanting all that ceremony. I'm referring specifically to the moment when he remarks that he knows what that says about him but instead of feeling for the 300 000 billion dead people in the part of space that was destroyed during the last Cyber war, he feels sorry "for the sod who had to pull the trigger". (Due to the temporal distance, it can't have been himself, but he obviously is aware he may have to do something similar due to his position.) It's both privileging and seeing the death of millions as drama for one man's angst and being ruthlessly honest about it. (Not to mention the obvious show meta moment, what with the Time War and the Doctor as the man who pulled the trigger etc.) And in the end, of course, the planet with the 3000 resurrected Cybermen does get blown up, while the screen attention is on the Emperor and his personal dramedy.
The Doctor versus himself as the Cyper Planner was a great showcase for Matt Smith, who took it and ran with it, and simultanously a very fannish "what if?", i.e. what happens if the Doctor gets cyber-ized. And of course the whole "opponent laying traps for Doctor who is laying traps for him" has a pleasing Seventh Doctor echo, only this time it happens in the Doctor's mind and the opponent is himself not just in metaphor or imagery or courtesy of plot device.(Hello, Dream Lord.)
All in all: a good adventure, but now the season is almost over, and there hasn't been an episode yet which I'd call outstanding and best off DW etc, which is a pity. Not that there weren't good episodes, but you know what I mean - episodes that make you wish you could show them to everyone for their amazingness. Last season, the only one in that calibre was The Doctor's Wife. This season, there has been none.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-13 08:36 am (UTC)I loved the fairground too! Very atmospheric, and quite a bit Coraline, if my memory serves me correctly. It's been a while since I read that book. I also have an insane amount of love for that sharpshooter, whatever his name was.
Another idea, re: the whole blowing up the galaxy issue. I think it says something about a person's life experience if they think it's more disturbing to have to live with what atrocities you caused than to be the dead victim of an atrocity. I remember Nine's remark from all the way back in s1's "Dalek", how he's not alive by choice, implying that whenever Eight killed everyone, it's a good bet that he either expected to die along with them or tried to kill himself afterward, and could've been totally dismayed to find himself still alive because...now what? Run and hide again?
It seems like "run and hide" might be a bit of a recurring theme this season. Or maybe I'm just seeing patterns out of nowhere, but there was Jex, and then the Doctor at Christmas, and then Mary, and then Palmer, and now the Emperor. Which probably ties into the whole name mystery thing that will presumably be addressed in the finale. I think Dorium's Detached Head said something to that effect last finale, but I haven't had the inclination to rewatch that episode in a long time.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-13 09:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-13 11:30 am (UTC)Was that specifically said? I thought it was him, but that was because I thought the society depicted had major similarities to a bowdlerised version of the Warhammer 40000 universe, in which the Emperor of Mankind literally is immortal.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-13 11:38 am (UTC)