It just isn't right
Sep. 5th, 2008 07:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenLet me start over.
I really, really love that people die and are unhappy in Doctor Who. That's entirely a weird thing to say, but it's true. It grounds the series, keeps it from being entirely pie-in-the-sky. I like that good people suffer; true love isn't always rewarded; the heroes don't win; everybody doesn't live. It makes the times when things go right even more special. It makes the hard choices worth making, makes the consequences of making them severe. It all begins with choice, but it doesn't end there. Choices aren't made in a vacuum, least of all in the time-travel, time-jump, alternate-universe reality of Doctor Who.
So, I really loved "The Stolen Earth" and "Journey's End" in that the choices that have been made for thirty years worth of show (starting with Sarah Jane and K9, bless 'em) come back along with some hundreds of years of the Doctor's personal timeline. So you get a reunion of companions, spin-offs, villains--the only thing missing was them dragging Christopher Eccleston or Peter Davidson into the mix. (Oh, how I wish. Eccleston, you magnificent beast: COME BACK.) It didn't even feel like overload either, which is really impressive given how many characters were in play. For some, it worked even better; Jack, for instance, is more tolerable when he's playing silly-yet-competent second to the Doctor rather than "bad-ass" leader/hero guy. Others, well, there's no rescuing them from the pits of suck. (::cough cough:: MARTA F'ING USELESS JONES)
Davros' plan was suitably cunning and ridiculous, which was great. I remember watching "Genesis of the Daleks" and loving every minute of Davros' planning because he was masterful and because everyone around him was a bleeping idiot. (Except the Doctor. Who was bumbling and adorable and YAY TOM BAKER FOREVER.) So I'm glad he got a little play, even if he was half-wasted on a season finale he barely appeared in. The Daleks were their typically hyperactive robot hamster selves. I will never not think they're the cutest widdle things no matter how many people they exterminate. Oh, and speaking of: Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister, former MP for Flydale North? We know who you are, and we will remember. Promise, promise. It amazes me how Russell T Davies could write such a human character, one who soared, fell, and rose again given how poorly he ended his major run on the show.
And with that, time to talk about Donna. I hate the entire idea of abusing the regeneration to keep David Tennant around, let alone using it to create another one of him. (The last thing I need is another manic/emo!Ten.) But if I go with it, just let it happen, it's not so bad. It's hard to argue what they "shouldn't" do with the Doctor's biology since it's the most muddled and poorly outlined part of him. The general idea of the show, however, seems to encourage the idea that you can't schism Time Lords. They are the only version of themselves--they in all their regenerations; there are no others in alternate universes. Makes sense. Bad (mad!) enough that the universe has to support the Doctor's regenerations. Can you imagine the chaos if there were infinite versions thereof? Infinite Masters?! (Infinite Romana's wouldn't be too bad. Romana is awesomesauce.) I had an objection to the Doctor being cloned in "The Doctor's Daughter" for much the same reason. There shouldn't be technology capable of reproducing Time Lords. It's just too dangerous. In this case, it was the Doctor's own tech/power/ability. Which still seems like hand-waving and outright magic. But hey! Timey-wimey stuff! ::hand waves::
Okay, so I buy the Doctor Donna. I love it, even, though she didn't need it. She was that much awesome without it. It's a nice compliment to her normal brashness that she can back it up with more than just mouth, but she didn't need it. Again, I bought it, and I was ready for it. A season of two Doctors and Donna being almost as obnoxiously insular and crazy fun would be like Rose, Jack, and Nine. It wouldn't last (it couldn't), but it would have been fun for a while. Or not. Whatever. What matters is that Donna was important. Just like Rose was, just like Jack and Sarah Jane and Mickey and Jackie and and and! It just took knocking out the Daleks' weaponry to make everyone wise up to it.
What do you do with her after this? You can't keep god-like powers. Rose couldn't, and as far as RTD is concerned, that means no one can. Donna has to give it up. Fine. It didn't have to be a horror show. And it was a horror show. Donna, being as much the Doctor as herself, knew what was happening to her, and like the Doctor, like herself, she didn't want to drub it out of her brain just to survive. She kept saying "No, no, no" and pushing away from the Doctor. (She knew he could do it without her permission and that she was not enough like him to stop him.) Back on the gaming station, Nine closed his eyes and said, "Maybe it's time" when death looked him in the eye. Because there were worse things than death.
And Ten put Donna through it. I raged. I wanted to throw things. Donna did not deserve that. Part of my fierce hatred of Ten for this is because I've never really gotten behind Ten's recklessness; I was very behind Victoria's dismissal of his being awful in his enjoyment of danger that hurt/kill people. This Ten is very psychotic. I don't trust him. Out of selfishness, to prove a point to himself, to make himself miserable as if it were comparable to what Donna suffer, he lobotomized Donna against her will. I fully believe he did it to kill himself (since he's not suicidal but the pressure of his failures is starting to make him even more desperate) and didn't consider, fully, the consequences. All that mattered is his not killing.
Russell T Davies is a bastard. He couldn't work his way out of the impossible situation he should never have set up in the first place. So he took a fundamentally unstable Doctor and pushed him past the point of being sympathetic and ruined him and Donna. But Rose got her happy ending. (If that's even possible. I can't believe that the Blue!Ten will not go entirely batshit insane being so brilliant and so limited in lifespan and not having the TARDIS and everything.) Martha keeps marching, and Freema Agyeman is free to suck up the free spot made for her over at Torchwood. (I hope Mickey is enough to balance her lack of anything.)
Why does Rose get the Doctor? NO ONE GETS HIM FOREVER. A good part of why the fantasy is so fulfilling, even realistic, but definitely tragic is the tacit acknowledgment that no one gets the Doctor forever. The men who've played him don't get him forever, let alone the companions. Rose gets him for the rest of his forever, and that's just not possible. It's not growing up, it's not moving on, it's staying a child with fingers in ears going "La la la la la" at the universe. It mocks the tragedy of the death of John Smith, the professor who fell in love in 1913, was given the dream of a family and a future, and was killed because family and futures are impossible when you're a god. You can't have them. He died because no one gets to settle the Doctor. Not even a woman he falls in love with as an ordinary person. The Blue Doctor left with Rose isn't even ordinary. NO ONE GETS HIM. It's not selfish to say that, it's the opposite of; if one person claims him, claims even a copy of him, they contain him. Contain a thing and it dies. It has to be free. Part of the Doctor already dies with each regeneration. Who the fuck is Russell T Davies to take more of him away and give it to his most specialest ever companion? I like Rose and I'm pissed off.
And Donna gets to be even less than she was before she met the Doctor. Gossiping on the phone, forever clued out to the major world-changing events. As if that will shield her forever. It won't. The secret won't keep. By the third Christmas, it was already leaked out; people know about Torchwood and to celebrate Christmas out of town. She can't ignore it forever. It'll come up, she'll know the depths of despair at what was removed and then her brain will blow out. Fine. At least she won't be a lobotomized ditz who can't relate to the changes that have come over the entire world. She wasn't better when she was him; he was better with her. (This will be doubly true of the cast-off Blue!Ten, who has absorbed the Doctor's sins so he can be "blameless." As though this would forgive what he did to Donna.) Donna didn't need stopping, she knew when. He should have let her stop.
I keep saying, and I'm sure of it, that this development would bother me less if I were sure that it would be remedied. If I knew that RTD or Stephen Moffat were going to make Ten pay for his actions or at least restore Donna to what she was before she was a demi-god. If I knew that the Blue!Ten wasn't a dead-end but another consequence of the choices that I started with. There are too many loose ends, too many plays going fast-and-loose with the inviolable. Stephen Moffat doesn't deserve being saddled with RTD's problems and his cast-offs. He does best when he mostly ignores the shit that RTD throws at the wall while trying to get some to stick. Still, if this isn't remedied, if Ten doesn't have to pay for his actions in more than loneliness and guilt--neither of which David Tennant has ever sold half as well as it would take me to believe it of him (again: WHY CHRISTOPHER ECCLESTON WHY!?)--I may cry for real.
I really, really love that people die and are unhappy in Doctor Who. That's entirely a weird thing to say, but it's true. It grounds the series, keeps it from being entirely pie-in-the-sky. I like that good people suffer; true love isn't always rewarded; the heroes don't win; everybody doesn't live. It makes the times when things go right even more special. It makes the hard choices worth making, makes the consequences of making them severe. It all begins with choice, but it doesn't end there. Choices aren't made in a vacuum, least of all in the time-travel, time-jump, alternate-universe reality of Doctor Who.
So, I really loved "The Stolen Earth" and "Journey's End" in that the choices that have been made for thirty years worth of show (starting with Sarah Jane and K9, bless 'em) come back along with some hundreds of years of the Doctor's personal timeline. So you get a reunion of companions, spin-offs, villains--the only thing missing was them dragging Christopher Eccleston or Peter Davidson into the mix. (Oh, how I wish. Eccleston, you magnificent beast: COME BACK.) It didn't even feel like overload either, which is really impressive given how many characters were in play. For some, it worked even better; Jack, for instance, is more tolerable when he's playing silly-yet-competent second to the Doctor rather than "bad-ass" leader/hero guy. Others, well, there's no rescuing them from the pits of suck. (::cough cough:: MARTA F'ING USELESS JONES)
Davros' plan was suitably cunning and ridiculous, which was great. I remember watching "Genesis of the Daleks" and loving every minute of Davros' planning because he was masterful and because everyone around him was a bleeping idiot. (Except the Doctor. Who was bumbling and adorable and YAY TOM BAKER FOREVER.) So I'm glad he got a little play, even if he was half-wasted on a season finale he barely appeared in. The Daleks were their typically hyperactive robot hamster selves. I will never not think they're the cutest widdle things no matter how many people they exterminate. Oh, and speaking of: Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister, former MP for Flydale North? We know who you are, and we will remember. Promise, promise. It amazes me how Russell T Davies could write such a human character, one who soared, fell, and rose again given how poorly he ended his major run on the show.
And with that, time to talk about Donna. I hate the entire idea of abusing the regeneration to keep David Tennant around, let alone using it to create another one of him. (The last thing I need is another manic/emo!Ten.) But if I go with it, just let it happen, it's not so bad. It's hard to argue what they "shouldn't" do with the Doctor's biology since it's the most muddled and poorly outlined part of him. The general idea of the show, however, seems to encourage the idea that you can't schism Time Lords. They are the only version of themselves--they in all their regenerations; there are no others in alternate universes. Makes sense. Bad (mad!) enough that the universe has to support the Doctor's regenerations. Can you imagine the chaos if there were infinite versions thereof? Infinite Masters?! (Infinite Romana's wouldn't be too bad. Romana is awesomesauce.) I had an objection to the Doctor being cloned in "The Doctor's Daughter" for much the same reason. There shouldn't be technology capable of reproducing Time Lords. It's just too dangerous. In this case, it was the Doctor's own tech/power/ability. Which still seems like hand-waving and outright magic. But hey! Timey-wimey stuff! ::hand waves::
Okay, so I buy the Doctor Donna. I love it, even, though she didn't need it. She was that much awesome without it. It's a nice compliment to her normal brashness that she can back it up with more than just mouth, but she didn't need it. Again, I bought it, and I was ready for it. A season of two Doctors and Donna being almost as obnoxiously insular and crazy fun would be like Rose, Jack, and Nine. It wouldn't last (it couldn't), but it would have been fun for a while. Or not. Whatever. What matters is that Donna was important. Just like Rose was, just like Jack and Sarah Jane and Mickey and Jackie and and and! It just took knocking out the Daleks' weaponry to make everyone wise up to it.
What do you do with her after this? You can't keep god-like powers. Rose couldn't, and as far as RTD is concerned, that means no one can. Donna has to give it up. Fine. It didn't have to be a horror show. And it was a horror show. Donna, being as much the Doctor as herself, knew what was happening to her, and like the Doctor, like herself, she didn't want to drub it out of her brain just to survive. She kept saying "No, no, no" and pushing away from the Doctor. (She knew he could do it without her permission and that she was not enough like him to stop him.) Back on the gaming station, Nine closed his eyes and said, "Maybe it's time" when death looked him in the eye. Because there were worse things than death.
And Ten put Donna through it. I raged. I wanted to throw things. Donna did not deserve that. Part of my fierce hatred of Ten for this is because I've never really gotten behind Ten's recklessness; I was very behind Victoria's dismissal of his being awful in his enjoyment of danger that hurt/kill people. This Ten is very psychotic. I don't trust him. Out of selfishness, to prove a point to himself, to make himself miserable as if it were comparable to what Donna suffer, he lobotomized Donna against her will. I fully believe he did it to kill himself (since he's not suicidal but the pressure of his failures is starting to make him even more desperate) and didn't consider, fully, the consequences. All that mattered is his not killing.
Russell T Davies is a bastard. He couldn't work his way out of the impossible situation he should never have set up in the first place. So he took a fundamentally unstable Doctor and pushed him past the point of being sympathetic and ruined him and Donna. But Rose got her happy ending. (If that's even possible. I can't believe that the Blue!Ten will not go entirely batshit insane being so brilliant and so limited in lifespan and not having the TARDIS and everything.) Martha keeps marching, and Freema Agyeman is free to suck up the free spot made for her over at Torchwood. (I hope Mickey is enough to balance her lack of anything.)
Why does Rose get the Doctor? NO ONE GETS HIM FOREVER. A good part of why the fantasy is so fulfilling, even realistic, but definitely tragic is the tacit acknowledgment that no one gets the Doctor forever. The men who've played him don't get him forever, let alone the companions. Rose gets him for the rest of his forever, and that's just not possible. It's not growing up, it's not moving on, it's staying a child with fingers in ears going "La la la la la" at the universe. It mocks the tragedy of the death of John Smith, the professor who fell in love in 1913, was given the dream of a family and a future, and was killed because family and futures are impossible when you're a god. You can't have them. He died because no one gets to settle the Doctor. Not even a woman he falls in love with as an ordinary person. The Blue Doctor left with Rose isn't even ordinary. NO ONE GETS HIM. It's not selfish to say that, it's the opposite of; if one person claims him, claims even a copy of him, they contain him. Contain a thing and it dies. It has to be free. Part of the Doctor already dies with each regeneration. Who the fuck is Russell T Davies to take more of him away and give it to his most specialest ever companion? I like Rose and I'm pissed off.
And Donna gets to be even less than she was before she met the Doctor. Gossiping on the phone, forever clued out to the major world-changing events. As if that will shield her forever. It won't. The secret won't keep. By the third Christmas, it was already leaked out; people know about Torchwood and to celebrate Christmas out of town. She can't ignore it forever. It'll come up, she'll know the depths of despair at what was removed and then her brain will blow out. Fine. At least she won't be a lobotomized ditz who can't relate to the changes that have come over the entire world. She wasn't better when she was him; he was better with her. (This will be doubly true of the cast-off Blue!Ten, who has absorbed the Doctor's sins so he can be "blameless." As though this would forgive what he did to Donna.) Donna didn't need stopping, she knew when. He should have let her stop.
I keep saying, and I'm sure of it, that this development would bother me less if I were sure that it would be remedied. If I knew that RTD or Stephen Moffat were going to make Ten pay for his actions or at least restore Donna to what she was before she was a demi-god. If I knew that the Blue!Ten wasn't a dead-end but another consequence of the choices that I started with. There are too many loose ends, too many plays going fast-and-loose with the inviolable. Stephen Moffat doesn't deserve being saddled with RTD's problems and his cast-offs. He does best when he mostly ignores the shit that RTD throws at the wall while trying to get some to stick. Still, if this isn't remedied, if Ten doesn't have to pay for his actions in more than loneliness and guilt--neither of which David Tennant has ever sold half as well as it would take me to believe it of him (again: WHY CHRISTOPHER ECCLESTON WHY!?)--I may cry for real.
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no subject
Date: 2008-09-08 05:11 am (UTC)For Donna to survive this "cure," she has to live in shack or have a protective wall of thick-headedness around her at all times. What a lovely thing to say about a companion, Davies.
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Date: 2008-09-11 12:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-11 02:00 am (UTC)