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Post by Riff on Jun 12, 2006 12:54:38 GMT -5
She's a God! Or, she's acting like she's one. In opposition to the false god that is the Emperor Dalek? The Dalek "religion" is the worst kind of bigoted and dogma-ridden belief system (no surprise from them). The Bad Wolf (TARDIS/Rose) on the other hand represents a kind of cosmological God: the space-time vortex, the universe itself. Consider how religion is referred to in "Boom Town". The TARDIS described as the "technology of the gods", and having a goddess-like power of renewal and rebirth. |
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Post by Riff on Jun 12, 2006 13:06:23 GMT -5
I want to see you become like me. The Doctor a coward? Did he want to die? Trap? Rose is the TARDIS, the TARDIS is Rose. Sort of. Message sent to Rose . . . . by Rose. Well, by TARDIS!Rose. "You are tiny." Well, yeah, to the Time Vortex, I imagine everything is tiny. Everything dies. Opposite of "everyone lives" from The Doctor Dances. "Empty. Scattered." Ah! She brought Jack back! Yays!! "You can't control life and death." "But I can." It's like Willow at the end of season 6. "My head is killing me." No one is meant to have all that in them. So the Doctor takes it out of Rose but is dying himself and that's why he needs to regenerate. And Captain Jack gets a much more traditional Dr Who companion ending. Alive, but left behind by the TARDIS.  Really the whole season is about life where it shouldn't be. Neither the Doctor nor the Daleks should have survived the Time War. In three episodes we have the undead (sometimes with gas masks  ). Cassandra tries to hold back death (and the death of the Earth was artificially postponed for millions of years). And, of course, Pete should not be alive in "Father's Day". |
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Post by Riff on Jun 12, 2006 13:15:10 GMT -5
Telepathic.... She remembers how to open the puppy, maybe.. Mickey, she's right: sweet as you are, you're not cut out for her. Crep! overridden the defenses.. and soon the defenders will be dead. Uh... yanking it open with a little bitty car... damn. Breaks the chain. ANNE DROID! Damn. She had to speak... So why the dalek distribution? to kill all the refugees, of course. ;D I would have liked to see the "What Not To Wear" bots face off against the Daleks too. Too bad Jack smoked 'em - we could have seen what a "well-dressed" Dalek should wear. DAAALEK FASHION SENSE IS SU PERIOR!!!  |
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Post by Riff on Jun 12, 2006 13:18:04 GMT -5
Didn't ya just love that kiss? He took it from her, and now, this Doctor must pay the price. It's like Cordelia getting the visions from Doyle. Only, sorta backwards like. Yay!! And sniffle! I love and hate regenerations.  Kinda like the Doctor does, I suppose. They may be the most interesting thing about the character: the fact that his core self remains the same while his superficial personality changes. Every cell is replaced, even those in the brain. Hmmm. |
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Post by Riff on Jun 12, 2006 13:27:25 GMT -5
Okay, then. I'm dissatisfied with the way the Doctor met his end. Bit of a cheat, really. I mean, Rose didn't die of the energy, why should he? She carried it much longer than he did, and his little "I absorbed it" bit was unconvincing. He didn't absorb it all, 'cause I saw lots of it leave. I just sorta feel that, if they were gonna kill him, he should have gone out with more drama and flair. I mean, he was a drama and flair kind of Doctor. Sad now.  Thinking about Russell T. Davies's other work, that was a "death" of mythic proportions. His previous writing has often made endings seem squalid and pathetic things. As for your technical point, I could just say that this is how things work when humanoids channel temporal energy. It just does. However, if I might indulge in a little fanwankery, are we certain Rose didn't die? Once the Doctor absorbed that energy, he could have returned her to life before allowing it to return to the TARDIS and the vortex. He has no one to do the same for him, but he can regenerate. Well, it sort of works. |
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Post by Riff on Jun 12, 2006 13:33:20 GMT -5
Ah, Mickey... good ears. Dalek Emperor doesn't know the Doctor very well. Shiva. It makes him Shiva, I guess. Pretty sure the Emperor was going for "Satan", though. I find it interesting, in at least a few ways, that when you make new Daleks out of humans (and hey - I called it, way back when "Dalek" aired, when I was afraid it would go to Las Vegas and start making new Daleks), that the thing they pick up from humanity is...religion. And it makes them insane. And even more dangerous. An interesting idea, although the Dalek religion was seemingly created via the Emperor Dalek's delusion about his divine status, and he was a survivor of the Time War, not generated in some way from human tissue. I suspect that this was a means of making the Daleks’ xenophobia contemporary, especially for children. Fascism as a world power has hopefully been relegated to history, but we understand religious bigotry only too well. |
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Post by Riff on Jun 12, 2006 13:34:33 GMT -5
Oy! Choice to kill all or kill none.  All the Daleks and humans, or let the humans fall to the Daleks. Just like the Time Lords - die and take them with you. I was sitting there, thinking...would I do it? The logic is impeccable. The human race was going to die, regardless - hell, large parts of it had already died, by the time the Doctor made his choice. So - kill them all and take the Daleks with you, or let them live and let the Daleks kill them and make Daleks of them? I think I might have killed humanity. Or, rather, I wouldn't have been able to, and felt really bad about being such a coward. Because...it was the right thing to do, to murder everyone on earth. But...to actually push the button? And SERIOUSLY with the god out of the machine, this time. Maybe even literally. |
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Post by Riff on Jun 12, 2006 13:44:20 GMT -5
Ah. You have to get them right in the eye stalk. Romance on the front lines. Doomed, but still. Rose's mum! Woot! Go you, with the big ol' truck and all. Poor Lynda. Just waiting for them to break in. And then, eeeeeeep! Floating Daleks! So, it's like there was a lo-jack on the TARDIS? And now the TARDIS went into Rose? Did the TARDIS send the messages? Captain Jack go boom.  I knew it was gonna happen, and he went out all noble and stuff. But still . . . bummer. See, now, HE got a good death. Of course, he didn't stay dead. Hey! Do you suppose Rose brought back all them folks the Daleks just melted on Earth? And hell...what about the Time Lords? If it was me, and I was the TARDIS incarnate and Rose at the same time, I'd have given the Doctor a present. Who can say? I suspect this was left open, especially for the youngest viewers who may have been extremely upset by some of the deaths, especially Lynda's. The BBC gave parents an option to say, "Don't worry. Rose brought them all back to life." You're right, though. One has to wonder what the Rose/TARDIS hybrid might have done as far as the Time Lords are concerned. And yet, the character isn't dead. Regenration is a little like the concept of reincarnation, in the sense that the superficial personality dies while something more fundamental - the true self, if you like - continues into a new body. There are two main differences to reincarnation: 1) The Doctor has memories of all his previous lives, whole and conscious. 2) None of the Doctor's previous selves have been Cleopatra. ;D |
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Post by Riff on Jun 12, 2006 13:47:28 GMT -5
Okay, then. I'm dissatisfied with the way the Doctor met his end. Bit of a cheat, really. I mean, Rose didn't die of the energy, why should he? She carried it much longer than he did, and his little "I absorbed it" bit was unconvincing. He didn't absorb it all, 'cause I saw lots of it leave. I just sorta feel that, if they were gonna kill him, he should have gone out with more drama and flair. I mean, he was a drama and flair kind of Doctor. Sad now. I agree. Nine took HUGE bites out of life. What was it he told Adam? "Only way is to jump right in: use the wrong verb, wind up kissing complete strangers..." I was hoping for a couple more seasons of Eccleston as The Doctor: he's become my favourite, about. When we first saw him, I wasn't sure what to make of him, but by the end of TPOTW, I felt real loss. What an outstanding Doctor. But it does make for an interesting season: the closed story of the doomed Ninth Doctor, fatally scared by the Time War. |
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Post by Riff on Jun 12, 2006 14:02:55 GMT -5
I don't know that your average, atheistic dalek could be considered "sane" by any stretch of the imagination, really, but whoo boy, Religion does seem to have done a number on them. Wasn't the original form of the Kaleds humanoid in shape? It makes sense, as you say, that a dalek could go on a recruiting drive using humans as raw material. And maybe the Emperor went a little nuts like the one in "Dalek" after his first contact with a human, and gathered some human emotions the way it did, but it processed it differently. Absorbed our religious tendencies, and decided it was god. *shrug* Novels, radio plays, and fanfic, oh my! Perhaps they were never atheistic, though it's hard to imagine them ever considering any being to be greater than them. Their "god" had to be a Dalek. And, yes, the Kaleds were basically humanoid Nazis (some far more than others, though). I don't think that there is an inherent human instinct for religion, but there does seem to be a tendency for humans to have absolute beliefs of some kind. Absolute belief in God's existence or non-existence, in nation, in a political model, in race, etc. These beliefs have all been profoundly bigoted and murderous when taken on as the official creed of a nation state. The Daleks have always been like this. St Paul may have been converted (allegedly) on the road to Damascus, but he ultimately changed from one kind of fanatic into another kind of fanatic. I think the message here is not that a little of us has gone into the Daleks, but that there is a little Dalek in each of us. |
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Post by Riff on Jun 12, 2006 14:10:09 GMT -5
Captain Jack to the rescue There's an emperor Dalek they went off to fight a bigger war...The time war The time war as a myth The Oncoming Storm I'm the Doctor and if there's one thing I can do, it's talk. Hee. 5 million (billion?) languages Love the look on Rose's face New Daleks created from humans. Half human. concept of blasphemy. Religion as the essence of humanity? that makes them insane. You hate your own existence and that makes them more deadly than ever. Talking more about himself? Level 500 again Lynda has a crush...And Rose is jealous You are worth fighting for. I bet he says that to everybody. Aw, he kisses them both... The daleks disappeared thousands of years ago. The TARDIS and changing history The Doctor just kisses Rose on the forehead. Emergency Program 1 Not just a good life, but a fantastic life. All humans will die by your hand. So it's happening again. Is this what happened last time and why all the Timelords were wiped out? If I am God, what does that make you, Doctor? Die as a human or live as a Dalek Bad Wolf: not part of the Dalek's design 200000 years from now is now. Is that it? That's what the rest of us do. It was a better life. A better way of living your life. You've got to start living your own life. The kind he can never have. BAD WOLF!!! This angelic music is hysterical How does Rose figure that it's a message ? There's nothing left for me here. Mickey takes that well. Death Shock: OK, that was freaky. You ARE the Weakest Link: BWAH HAH HAH!!!!!!!!! Dad wouldn't give up. And she tells Jackie about meeting Dad. Asking her out for a drink. hee. Yay, Jackie comes through. But Captain Jack's to pretty to die! I want you to be like me, the Great Exterminator. coward or killer? coward anyday. Dude. Superpowers. Or Rose isn't herself. Rose is the Bad Wolf. Or the TARDIS is the Bad Wolf? I guessed that like a couple seconds before she said that. So the Doctor knows past, present, and future, all inclusive. So he's like the Guardian of Forever. So, is Rose a Timelord now? No, OK. But that's got to have some lasting effect. Yep, Captain Jack is too pretty to die. Aw, a kiss. Ah, so that's how it happens. I knew that the Doctor was going to change over, but I didn't know it was at the very end of the season. There were quite a few times throughout where I thought it was going to happen. So, it all did tie together in the end. The Dalek's were more impressive, the death shock thing where you see the skeleton was well done, but I'm still having trouble taking the Dalek's seriously. The music was hi-lariously melodramaticly overdone. You know, I think the Daleks are supposed to be pathetic, but that it is this very element (the fact that they are so horribly mutated, that they are basically crippled blobs with one-track minds of hysterical hatred) that makes them so destructive to all other life. *laughs* As for the music, fan opinion is very divided. I like most of it myself. |
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Post by Riff on Jun 12, 2006 14:17:52 GMT -5
Read your season review/analysis again, Riff, now that I understand it. Like all the themes that you pointed out, many more than I picked up on. There definitely is a lot there. Is each season connected and self contained like this, or is it the journey of each version of the Doctor that's interconnected and such? It varies. Each Doctor tends to have a distinctive "era", in some ways based on his character, and in other ways on circumstance. The Third Doctor, for example, spent most of his life trapped on Earth as a punishment by the Time Lords. Some seasons have very interconnected stories, such as the so-called "Arc in Space" and "Key of Time" seasons. There are also long-running stories, such as the First Doctor tale, "The Dalek Master Plan" - 12 episodes! |
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Post by Onjel on Jun 14, 2006 15:39:36 GMT -5
She's a God! Or, she's acting like she's one. In opposition to the false god that is the Emperor Dalek? The Dalek "religion" is the worst kind of bigoted and dogma-ridden belief system (no surprise from them). The Bad Wolf (TARDIS/Rose) on the other hand represents a kind of cosmological God: the space-time vortex, the universe itself. Consider how religion is referred to in "Boom Town". The TARDIS described as the "technology of the gods", and having a goddess-like power of renewal and rebirth. Just so you know, I wasn't saying that in a critical way. I liked that she could do what she did. It balanced and countermanded the actions of the Daleks and their emperor in a very neat fashion. As for everything else, I do agree. |
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Post by Sara on Jun 14, 2006 15:57:09 GMT -5
See, now, HE got a good death. Of course, he didn't stay dead. Hey! Do you suppose Rose brought back all them folks the Daleks just melted on Earth? And hell...what about the Time Lords? If it was me, and I was the TARDIS incarnate and Rose at the same time, I'd have given the Doctor a present. You're right, though. One has to wonder what the Rose/TARDIS hybrid might have done as far as the Time Lords are concerned. And yet, the character isn't dead. Regenration is a little like the concept of reincarnation, in the sense that the superficial personality dies while something more fundamental - the true self, if you like - continues into a new body. There are two main differences to reincarnation: 1) The Doctor has memories of all his previous lives, whole and conscious. 2) None of the Doctor's previous selves have been Cleopatra. ;D Forget the kids-- I was sitting there saying "I'm just gonna presume Rose brought everyone back when she resurrected Captain Jack... 'cause it makes me happy." |
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Post by Lola m on Jun 14, 2006 16:35:28 GMT -5
;D I would have liked to see the "What Not To Wear" bots face off against the Daleks too. Too bad Jack smoked 'em - we could have seen what a "well-dressed" Dalek should wear. DAAALEK FASHION SENSE IS SU PERIOR!!! **snicker** Well of course it is.  ;D |
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). Cassandra tries to hold back death (and the death of the Earth was artificially postponed for millions of years). And, of course, Pete should not be alive in "Father's Day".
Kinda like the Doctor does, I suppose. 
All the Daleks and humans, or let the humans fall to the Daleks.
I knew it was gonna happen, and he went out all noble and stuff. But still . . . bummer. 
;D