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Post by Sue on Aug 1, 2008 22:19:04 GMT -5
TARDIS is going to bring the Earth back? OK. K-9!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! **death from happy squeefulness, complete** I mean, nevermind that the whole towing thing is, you know, not possible. Because bringing them to a different spot without losing atmosphere and killing everyone was not possible either, so two not possibles cancel each other out. Happy happy TARDIS hugggles. **is very happy** Also? Donna hauling Sarah Jane away from Jack so she could have at him? Most excellent!! (And not just because she's part Doctor. OK, that's a lot of it, but still. ) Nice touch, with the news crawl and so on. Sweet! Martha and Jack head off, and so maybe she joins Torchwood? **thinks happy Torchwood orgy thoughts** Ooh, and maybe Mickey too? **more happy squeaking** Back at the other dimension? Oh! They have to deal with the second Doctor. Genocidal-angry Doctor, like he used to be. So, Rose will help make him better. And he's part human. He's got only one life, so they can be together. She gets to keep a "sort-of" Doctor. Which is sort of OK for her, I'm sure. But, he really is the Doctor she loves, or at least part of him. And it's the only way she'd ever get to be with him, so . . . A neat way to solve it. Because the real Doctor is never gonna be anthing other than what he is, and that won't work for her. See this is the "all tied up in a happy-happy package with a great big birthday bow on it." BUT............. The Doctor goes from being entirely surrounded by his "family" to entirely cut off --- really, really, really, really CUT OFF --- from them. It took me a while to get past the horrible heartache/leaky eyes/ hand over my mouth stage. This is my personal squick (like Anya with bunnies and Julia with submarines) and worst recurring nightmare. Cut off from my family. As I quoted before "all of my everybodies have somebody else." The look on Donna's grandfather's face said it all---exactly what I was feeling: horror, pain, compassion. Now he's not only separated dimensionally from Rose, but she's no longer going to be searching for a way back to him. It may take her a short while and maybe she'll never completely forget the Original Doctor, but she belongs to someone else now. And that Doctor has what he could have had. Interesting that the Copy Doctor is still angry and genocidal but was still capable for telling Rose (I assume) that he loves her. While the Orig. Doctor still refrains from telling her that "for her own good"---so she'll be less torn up. So Sarah Jane goes back to her son; Martha goes off with Jack; Mickey goes on to a new life (will he show up on Torchwood, do you think?); Rose has the Copy Doctor AND her mom. But The Doctor still has Donna. Remember the prophecy? "One of The Doctor's Companions will die today." Donna died. Our Donna Noble. His Donna Noble. Died. In fact, from The Doctor's point of view (and possibly Grandpa's) Donna's fate is almost worse than death. To become that non-brilliant insignificant being she always feared being. It's like watching someone go into dementia, or Alzheimers, or suffer a brain injury. Sometimes that person is unaware of what they've lost. But you've lost the person as you always knew them to be. There is still the body; and possibly glimpses of the personality; but they don't remember you. Donna is dead to The Doctor. The Doctor is a non-entity to Donna. Her joy, her brilliant contribution to the universe----there will be no more of that and she can't even remember what she did contribute. He's lost them both. Man, I really hope I don't have nightmares tonight. more in next post.
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Post by Lola m on Aug 1, 2008 22:22:21 GMT -5
If I hit stop when Mickey and Martha walk off, I really like that episode. After that, though... *facepalm* isn't quite enough. Though, earlier, Rose saying she was building a between universes transport? When the Doctor said that would destroy both universes? Why is that treated as cute?!? beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/1498742.html is my on the day thoughts. Interesting thinky thoughts! 'Cuz I can see the things you point out, but I can also see other angles too. Like, just from a story way of thinking, packing Rose off with the second human Doctor is a good way to, well, dispose of both of them. Dust your writerly hands of them, so to speak. And without killing one or both or whatever. Like, you wrote yourself into a corner, so then you wrote yourself another door in the corner and got back out into the hall anyway. Which I suppose tells you that I was tired of Rose, just like you were. I think I have even less problem with the idea of wiping Donna entirely, because that just makes her an ordinary human. And I don't see anything wrong with that, being all ordinary human myself. I mean, if the story was gonna decide that Donna couldn't stay the DoctorDonna, (and even though that would be really cool, I can see why, purely from a Dr Who writer perspective, they'd find it too hard to have 2 or 3 Doctors ongoing - cool for one ep, but too hard to keep going for entire seasons), then returning her to original state is just not a horrible thing, at least not to me. But I can see why it also is sucky to have lost good memories.
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Post by Sue on Aug 1, 2008 22:24:30 GMT -5
Just more of the same, but a bit of an additional comment on the writing.
The first hour was a very typical Doctor episode. Cliffhangers, threats, end of the world, doomsday scenarios. Last second rescues, heretofore unknown super-technology saving the day.
etc.
But the final half hour was brilliant to my mind. I mean, we knew it all had to be wrapped up. Of course we wondered how that was going to be done. I find that far too much (most?) Sci-Fi really struggles with the coda/epilogue/tying up the loose ends.
I mean, the earth was towed back to it's orbit and all was well with the world and they still spent nearly 30 minutes on the emotional aftermath. I loved it as much as I hated the pain.
I really appreciated David Tennant's acting when he didn't have to run around and point the screwdriver and shout threats at the bizarre bad guys.
It wrenched my gut (which, I realize I have said repeatedly now.)
Good show, writers. Best half hour of the season.
[So, new companion next season. I don't even know any casting spoilers. Maybe we'll get to meet the woman who knew his name in the library?]
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Post by Sue on Aug 1, 2008 22:30:08 GMT -5
If I hit stop when Mickey and Martha walk off, I really like that episode. After that, though... *facepalm* isn't quite enough. Though, earlier, Rose saying she was building a between universes transport? When the Doctor said that would destroy both universes? Why is that treated as cute?!? beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/1498742.html is my on the day thoughts. Interesting thinky thoughts! 'Cuz I can see the things you point out, but I can also see other angles too. Like, just from a story way of thinking, packing Rose off with the second human Doctor is a good way to, well, dispose of both of them. Dust your writerly hands of them, so to speak. And without killing one or both or whatever. Like, you wrote yourself into a corner, so then you wrote yourself another door in the corner and got back out into the hall anyway. Which I suppose tells you that I was tired of Rose, just like you were. I think I have even less problem with the idea of wiping Donna entirely, because that just makes her an ordinary human. And I don't see anything wrong with that, being all ordinary human myself. I mean, if the story was gonna decide that Donna couldn't stay the DoctorDonna, (and even though that would be really cool, I can see why, purely from a Dr Who writer perspective, they'd find it too hard to have 2 or 3 Doctors ongoing - cool for one ep, but too hard to keep going for entire seasons), then returning her to original state is just not a horrible thing, at least not to me. But I can see why it also is sucky to have lost good memories. Lola, I see your point---that "just" being a human being is not a bad thing. And I mostly agree. But Donna's fate makes me think of that book/move "Flowers for Algernon." Charlie is just as happy at the end as at the beginning but somehow there is that overwhelming sense of lost potential. Like, if you could see Beethoven or Einstein in a crystal ball and then in real life have them live entirely "ordinary" lives. I don't like that. Although my sadness has more to do with the Doctor (and possibly Grandpa) than Donna herself. No use blaming her for being ordinary.
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Post by Sue on Aug 1, 2008 22:32:54 GMT -5
Oh, one more. FANTASTIC line, but I'll get the quote wrong.
"There are 3 of you."
JACK: something like "I can't tell you what I'm thinking right now."
Which only makes you snort if you know something about Jack's character.
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Post by Lola m on Aug 1, 2008 22:36:26 GMT -5
TARDIS is going to bring the Earth back? OK. K-9!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! **death from happy squeefulness, complete** I mean, nevermind that the whole towing thing is, you know, not possible. Because bringing them to a different spot without losing atmosphere and killing everyone was not possible either, so two not possibles cancel each other out. Happy happy TARDIS hugggles. **is very happy** Also? Donna hauling Sarah Jane away from Jack so she could have at him? Most excellent!! (And not just because she's part Doctor. OK, that's a lot of it, but still. ) Nice touch, with the news crawl and so on. Sweet! Martha and Jack head off, and so maybe she joins Torchwood? **thinks happy Torchwood orgy thoughts** Ooh, and maybe Mickey too? **more happy squeaking** Back at the other dimension? Oh! They have to deal with the second Doctor. Genocidal-angry Doctor, like he used to be. So, Rose will help make him better. And he's part human. He's got only one life, so they can be together. She gets to keep a "sort-of" Doctor. Which is sort of OK for her, I'm sure. But, he really is the Doctor she loves, or at least part of him. And it's the only way she'd ever get to be with him, so . . . A neat way to solve it. Because the real Doctor is never gonna be anthing other than what he is, and that won't work for her. See this is the "all tied up in a happy-happy package with a great big birthday bow on it." BUT............. The Doctor goes from being entirely surrounded by his "family" to entirely cut off --- really, really, really, really CUT OFF --- from them. It took me a while to get past the horrible heartache/leaky eyes/ hand over my mouth stage. This is my personal squick (like Anya with bunnies and Julia with submarines) and worst recurring nightmare. Cut off from my family. As I quoted before "all of my everybodies have somebody else." The look on Donna's grandfather's face said it all---exactly what I was feeling: horror, pain, compassion. Now he's not only separated dimensionally from Rose, but she's no longer going to be searching for a way back to him. It may take her a short while and maybe she'll never completely forget the Original Doctor, but she belongs to someone else now. And that Doctor has what he could have had. Interesting that the Copy Doctor is still angry and genocidal but was still capable for telling Rose (I assume) that he loves her. While the Orig. Doctor still refrains from telling her that "for her own good"---so she'll be less torn up. So Sarah Jane goes back to her son; Martha goes off with Jack; Mickey goes on to a new life (will he show up on Torchwood, do you think?); Rose has the Copy Doctor AND her mom. But The Doctor still has Donna. Remember the prophecy? "One of The Doctor's Companions will die today." Donna died. Our Donna Noble. His Donna Noble. Died. In fact, from The Doctor's point of view (and possibly Grandpa's) Donna's fate is almost worse than death. To become that non-brilliant insignificant being she always feared being. It's like watching someone go into dementia, or Alzheimers, or suffer a brain injury. Sometimes that person is unaware of what they've lost. But you've lost the person as you always knew them to be. There is still the body; and possibly glimpses of the personality; but they don't remember you. Donna is dead to The Doctor. The Doctor is a non-entity to Donna. Her joy, her brilliant contribution to the universe----there will be no more of that and she can't even remember what she did contribute. He's lost them both. Man, I really hope I don't have nightmares tonight. more in next post. Hmmmm. I can definitely see your view. But . . . . but I also have another way that my mind can see it too. The Doctor has lost them. But, well, the Doctor's entire history is meeting new people, and losing those people in different ways, and meeting new ones, and so on and so on. A part of me thinks that it could be OK to have an ever changing panorama of people in your life. (I think I may be very much like Jack that way.) And I would argue that plain old Donna Noble is not a non-brilliant insignificant being actually and she can learn to discover the truth of that, even on Earth, doing normal Earth-person things. (Especially if her mom is a bit less judgey and snarky with her.) She didn't become a different person out there with the Doctor, it was herself as she is that went exploring with the Doctor and saving people and worlds. The comparison with dementia is interesting and I can see how it works. But I know I had conflicting feelings as my mom's dementia grew and then as she was essentially "not there" for the last few years of her life. I was sad to see her vanish that way. You do go through a grieving process, because you are losing the person before you've actually lost them, so to speak. But at the same time, she also was there. Not the person you knew before, but a different person. And I got to a point where that was just the new normal. I tend to think we become sort of different people many times during our lives. She was leaving us, slowly to be sure, and already gone before her body agreed with the decision. But that was also just another stage in life, you know? But it's not like I can't empathize and understand your point and where you're coming from.
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Post by Lola m on Aug 1, 2008 22:37:47 GMT -5
Oh, one more. FANTASTIC line, but I'll get the quote wrong. "There are 3 of you." JACK: something like "I can't tell you what I'm thinking right now." Which only makes you snort if you know something about Jack's character. Loved that line. 'Cuz him and me? Brainshare!
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Post by Lola m on Aug 1, 2008 22:54:42 GMT -5
So… the Doctor didn’t regenerate. Mickey! And Jackie! I’m starting to think that they’re maxing out this cast reunion. Heeee! Indeed they were. By the time we got K-9, that was just the best. ;D Yeah, the semi-sciencey stuff in this ep was, well, not very logical. Even for a Dr Who ep. I fanwanked it (or maybe this is what he meant to imply and just didn't make it clear enough) that since the dimensions were all bleeding together she felt she had to - the walls between things were falling apart anyway and this was perhaps a way to fix that. Yes! Now, see these are the important questions of our generation!! Why?! Why with the clothes!? That was an excellent use of destiny/prophesy, wasn't it? Sounds like one thing, whoopsie! It's Angel's "father will kill the son" and Connor the destroyer all over again. Indeed! And not a well-thought out plan for ego-maniacal villains. Didn't they read the evil overlord manual? You can't overlord very well if you have no underlordlings! Heh! I'd be the filling in that sandwich. Everything go boom? Yup. Dammit! Why aren't you writing the show?!?! **shakes tiny fist** I would totally watch your Dr Who ep. Well, really, does any of it? Oh, intriguing comparison! Well, she does do that supposedly fiercely protective of her daughter while all the time being rather "put her down all the time" to her face. Maybe he was hoping to get her to be more openly supportive? Except also with the biggest family on Earth.
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Post by Lola m on Aug 1, 2008 22:55:42 GMT -5
I am going to miss Donna. Rose got what she wanted, in a manner of speaking. I had a feeling Donna was going to absorb some of that regeneration energy but didn't see that "mind meld" thing coming. Best line? "I can't tell you what I'm thinking right now." Second best line? "You can have me. No. Really. You can have me." ;D Indeed.
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Post by Lola m on Aug 1, 2008 22:59:36 GMT -5
If I hit stop when Mickey and Martha walk off, I really like that episode. After that, though... *facepalm* isn't quite enough. Though, earlier, Rose saying she was building a between universes transport? When the Doctor said that would destroy both universes? Why is that treated as cute?!? beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/1498742.html is my on the day thoughts. I agree with so much of what you said there. I don't know where to start, but I can say I really loved the DoctorDonna. Donna with the Time Lord brain and her very own moxie still intact was an awesome thing to behold. Rose arriving to blow away the Dalek just before killing Donna's family-terrific. Jackie and Mickey arriving to blow away the Daleks before offing Sarah Jane-twice as terrific. I loved, loved, loved Jackie's new sensibility and her approach. I dislike that The Doctor wiped all of Donna's memories of him and their experiences. I am not happy with that development. Nor am I happy that he is again, the "lonely guy at the top" of the evolutionary food chain. Part of my problem, and the biggest part by far, is the notion that someone else gets to make my life choices for me and making those choices for others runs a risk of empowering the chooser so much he or she becomes a very real danger. Knowledge is life. Too much knowledge is oxymoronic. If anything, a little knowledge is far more dangerous than too much. It's the second part of the equation that is important: what personality type is the person with the huge knowledge? Someone who is a promoter of human kind or someone who is a promoter of him or herself? That is where the potential for harm lies. Donna is a promoter of humanity and I don't see that there would be such a thing as "too much knowledge" and don't like that she wasn't deemed strong enough to withstand the knowledge. Oh, this is nicely put. Yes, this aspect of the mind wipe is not good to me.
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Post by Lola m on Aug 1, 2008 23:03:28 GMT -5
Emperor: 1980 Davros: 1975 Just saying. Though this performance did have a bit more of it than some others. I loved the ribcage thing. That's just a nice extra touch there. Yes, the ribcage was nicely done. And I loved that this Davros looked just like Davros, you know? I mean, yeah they updated the makeup and special effects stuff, but he looked like the old Davros I remember! Most excellent.
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Post by Lola m on Aug 1, 2008 23:07:31 GMT -5
No one is posting? Fascinating. Hee! I was late to the party. Work has been even more extraordinarly busy (I know! I didn't think that was possible either!) and another mini-family saga this week as well. Means I've been a tiny bit crazed all week and running behind on everything.
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Post by Lola m on Aug 1, 2008 23:08:50 GMT -5
The world is saved. The Daleks are destroyed. The planets are back where they belong. Rose gets (a) Doctor. The Doctor gets Rose. It's a happy happy ending all round. And it's the saddest thing I've ever seen. Man, that was some fascinating, convoluted, tumultous, heart-rending writing. "Everybody I've got has got someone else." So, who am I sadder for----The Doctor or Donna? *a bit numb* It was a hell of a rollercoasty ep, wasn't it?
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Post by Lola m on Aug 1, 2008 23:21:01 GMT -5
Just more of the same, but a bit of an additional comment on the writing. The first hour was a very typical Doctor episode. Cliffhangers, threats, end of the world, doomsday scenarios. Last second rescues, heretofore unknown super-technology saving the day. etc. But the final half hour was brilliant to my mind. I mean, we knew it all had to be wrapped up. Of course we wondered how that was going to be done. I find that far too much (most?) Sci-Fi really struggles with the coda/epilogue/tying up the loose ends. I mean, the earth was towed back to it's orbit and all was well with the world and they still spent nearly 30 minutes on the emotional aftermath. I loved it as much as I hated the pain. I really appreciated David Tennant's acting when he didn't have to run around and point the screwdriver and shout threats at the bizarre bad guys. It wrenched my gut (which, I realize I have said repeatedly now.) Good show, writers. Best half hour of the season. [So, new companion next season. I don't even know any casting spoilers. Alex Kingston, maybe?] Still catching my breath, here! And yes, now I'm wanting the next season now!
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Post by Rachael on Aug 2, 2008 0:14:39 GMT -5
Okay....
1) I find the ending with Donna to be the saddest thing ever. I'm very dissatisfied with how they disposed of her. I'd rather she died a hero than go back to being the woman who doesn't think she's anything special.
2) I find the ending with Rose to be satisfying and yet frustrating. Felt like fan wish-fulfillment more than solid storytelling. So Rose gets herself a Doctor with all the negatives taken out? How very AU fanfic of them.
3) I absolutely adored Old Home Week. Seeing all those names in the opening credits, and having everyone turn up for the conclusion was great.
4) The overall season construction continues to be impressive. The DoctorDonna clues and foreshadowing were there all along, just like Bad Wolf.
5) I honestly have no problem with genocide when it's the Daleks being genocided. I'll make an exception to my "no genocide" rule for a race with absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The biggest mistake the Doctor ever made, IMO, was not destroying them all in "Genesis of the Daleks".
6) Not nearly enough naked Doctor.
7) "I can't tell you what I'm thinking right now." Hee!
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