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Post by Queen E on Nov 15, 2009 13:43:05 GMT -5
Here be the place to discuss the latest special!
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Post by beccaelizabeth on Nov 15, 2009 16:25:25 GMT -5
So that was upsetting. The water zombies and base under siege is a promising setup, but then there's the long sequence of the Doctor walking away while people scream, and they end the epi with a woman committing suicide and the Doctor concluding he 'went too far' when he tried to save them. That's just wrong.
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Post by spacecat1974 on Nov 15, 2009 21:53:29 GMT -5
So that was upsetting. The water zombies and base under siege is a promising setup, but then there's the long sequence of the Doctor walking away while people scream, and they end the epi with a woman committing suicide and the Doctor concluding he 'went too far' when he tried to save them. That's just wrong. Maybe but I think he needed to re-learn that lesson. He can't just change events willy nilly. Honestly, I was kind of hoping she would turn out to be his new companion, as that could've essentially done the same thing by taking her out of the timeline. Best comment on tonight's episode I've read so far was on Stephen Fry's twitter "The water always wins..." ;D |
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Post by beccaelizabeth on Nov 15, 2009 23:10:49 GMT -5
So that was upsetting. The water zombies and base under siege is a promising setup, but then there's the long sequence of the Doctor walking away while people scream, and they end the epi with a woman committing suicide and the Doctor concluding he 'went too far' when he tried to save them. That's just wrong. Honestly, I was kind of hoping she would turn out to be his new companion, as that could've essentially done the same thing by taking her out of the timeline. Best comment on tonight's episode I've read so far was on Stephen Fry's twitter "The water always wins..." ;D I have to disagree in the strongest terms. Only in SF land is the question even if he can 'change events'. The Doctor helps people. That can't be a problem, that can't be the wrong thing, to save lives. The only possible problem is making decisions for people, taking their free will away, and he wasn't doing that, he was providing them with a way to survive when they wanted to survive. He didn't do it wrong, not once he started to help them. Helping is good. |
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Post by artemis on Dec 19, 2009 22:41:47 GMT -5
I agree with becca. I felt the same way at the end as with Torchwood: Children of Earth - that the setup was so interesting and then the execution a confusing, disappointing letdown. If he wanted to just leave, he should have just left, and if he wanted to help, he should have kept helping instead of dawdling around being indecisive, just listening to people die. The dawdling felt like it was solely there as a plot device to me - it didn't feel organic to his character. In the past on the new DW, the times he hasn't wanted to help but ended up doing so have almost always been when he literally couldn't leave for whatever reason (usually something to do with lack of access to the Tardis). So in the end, he unintentionally gave a nearly unimaginable burden - one that in Pompeii seemed a difficult burden to bear even to someone used to looking at time in the way of a Time Lord - to a human woman because he couldn't face the burden himself.
I miss Donna being around to verbally smack some sense into him.
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Post by Rachael on Dec 20, 2009 0:42:28 GMT -5
Oooh. God finally realized he's God, eh?
And also what happens when you let folks have free will.
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Post by Rachael on Dec 20, 2009 0:51:05 GMT -5
Here's the thing, though...the Time Lords have always been about noninterference...and the Doctor has always been a renegade because he interferes. Which is typically of the good.
The point, though, is that he can't be SURE what the repercussions of a change in the timeline will be. It's been said several times that the Doctor's ability to see all of time has been handicapped by the loss of his people...while he used to be able to know what changes are tolerable and which aren't, now he might not be able to see all the possible outcomes.
And in this case, he seemed to KNOW that Adelaide needed to die, but decided he had the power to rewrite the future to his own liking, to find a way around this fixed point in time. It's arrogance, above and beyond his usual level...and it's meant to show him he can't always avoid the future that's waiting for him.
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Post by artemis on Dec 20, 2009 20:45:11 GMT -5
And in this case, he seemed to KNOW that Adelaide needed to die, but decided he had the power to rewrite the future to his own liking, to find a way around this fixed point in time. It's arrogance, above and beyond his usual level...and it's meant to show him he can't always avoid the future that's waiting for him. I understand that. It just felt to me like the story was written in an awkward way. Why not have him interfere the whole time if this was his intended lesson? A day after watching, I still think that his sticking around for no apparent reason seemed uncharacteristic of this Doctor and that it seemed to be written in solely as a plot device to make him "snap" into taking action despite knowing Adelaide's death in particular was a fixed point* and thus learn the lesson. (*And if it was just Adelaide's death that was fixed, as both the setup and end imply, by that "logic," interfering sooner might have resulted in him saving more of the rest of the crew, which seems like something this Doctor would have wanted to try to do, whether or not he should have tried.) |
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Post by Rachael on Dec 21, 2009 10:36:42 GMT -5
And in this case, he seemed to KNOW that Adelaide needed to die, but decided he had the power to rewrite the future to his own liking, to find a way around this fixed point in time. It's arrogance, above and beyond his usual level...and it's meant to show him he can't always avoid the future that's waiting for him. I understand that. It just felt to me like the story was written in an awkward way. Why not have him interfere the whole time if this was his intended lesson? A day after watching, I still think that his sticking around for no apparent reason seemed uncharacteristic of this Doctor and that it seemed to be written in solely as a plot device to make him "snap" into taking action despite knowing Adelaide's death in particular was a fixed point* and thus learn the lesson. (*And if it was just Adelaide's death that was fixed, as both the setup and end imply, by that "logic," interfering sooner might have resulted in him saving more of the rest of the crew, which seems like something this Doctor would have wanted to try to do, whether or not he should have tried.) I think he hung out all day because he was interested in watching history play out. |
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Post by Queen E on Dec 26, 2009 0:22:56 GMT -5
I understand that. It just felt to me like the story was written in an awkward way. Why not have him interfere the whole time if this was his intended lesson? A day after watching, I still think that his sticking around for no apparent reason seemed uncharacteristic of this Doctor and that it seemed to be written in solely as a plot device to make him "snap" into taking action despite knowing Adelaide's death in particular was a fixed point* and thus learn the lesson. (*And if it was just Adelaide's death that was fixed, as both the setup and end imply, by that "logic," interfering sooner might have resulted in him saving more of the rest of the crew, which seems like something this Doctor would have wanted to try to do, whether or not he should have tried.) I think he hung out all day because he was interested in watching history play out. I'm with Rachael on this one. I think he was interested in watching history play out...in a very cold manner. To me, it was an excellently executed narrative line from "The Runaway Bride" on a couple of different levels. He has a tendency to "go too far" and thus needs someone around, as Donna herself suggested, to keep him in line. He has been alone since "Journey's End" and that means he gets further and further from connecting with humans. It makes him colder, which fits in with him wanting to stay to watch it play out, very much like a god. Further, he is wearing the blue suit, which connects him to The Doctor 2.0, whom The Doctor himself says went too far in destroying the Daleks and needed Rose to make him more human. The use of water to destroy in both "The Runaway Bride" and "The Waters of Mars" also is a connecting thread. It also puts the Doctor in "Master" territory...except for the awareness that he'd done wrong. I liked it. |
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Post by Lola m on Dec 28, 2009 21:53:58 GMT -5
Ooooh! Lot's of angst and foreshadowing in this one, eh?
All this "the laws of time are mine and they will obey me" is the Doctor wanting to feel like that "everyone lives" moment, even though he knows (inside) that it's not really an "everyone lives" moment. Or not supposed to be.
He's all defiant (and scared) about his impending prophesied death thing and grrrr. Which is actually kind of making him a bit Master-y by the end there, isn't it? All "live your life this way, no this way, why?, because I say have the power to make you".
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Post by artemis on Jan 2, 2010 22:58:01 GMT -5
I'm with Rachael on this one. I think he was interested in watching history play out...in a very cold manner. To me, it was an excellently executed narrative line from "The Runaway Bride" on a couple of different levels. He has a tendency to "go too far" and thus needs someone around, as Donna herself suggested, to keep him in line. He has been alone since "Journey's End" and that means he gets further and further from connecting with humans. It makes him colder, which fits in with him wanting to stay to watch it play out, very much like a god. Further, he is wearing the blue suit, which connects him to The Doctor 2.0, whom The Doctor himself says went too far in destroying the Daleks and needed Rose to make him more human. The use of water to destroy in both "The Runaway Bride" and "The Waters of Mars" also is a connecting thread. It also puts the Doctor in "Master" territory...except for the awareness that he'd done wrong. I liked it. Actually, the episode makes a lot more sense to me if I think of it in that way, most especially the parallels to "The Runaway Bride" (Doctor in a body bag that Donna-less night in the parallel timeline, anyone?). Somewhere (I don't think it was on S3) I mentioned after watching this that I really felt the lack of Donna's presence in this episode, and I think this sort of reason is exactly why. |
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