May. 19th, 2013 05:19 pm
The Name of the Doctor
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clocketpatchThat was exceptionally well done.
I feel like all of the stories this series have played on the side of danger, trying to be big and grand and new, and sometimes they've hit it on the head and sometimes they've tripped over the weight of their own ambitions and the results have been, uh, mixed *cough* Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS *cough* but that striving is still plainly evident every time. I think that's why I've really liked this series, even when I haven't, because it hasn't been playing safe. It's been the Doctor; different every time, reinventing itself every week. Well done. And visually, stunning every time even when the plots have left a bit to be desired.
(I'm going to be doing a rewatch of the first half of the series over the next few days/weeks to see what I think, since I wasn't in the best state of mind while watching them the first time. I still liked them, mostly, but I think my opinion was more than a bit impacted by inertia)
Anyway, back to the episode at hand. Reviews of the excellent Crimson Horror and the stunning Silver Nightmare will follow in time, but I want to jot down my thoughts on the finale while they're still fresh:
I was not at all expecting CGI inserts of past Doctors, but that was brilliant and as well done as it could be given the different film qualities they had to work with (I liked how they just decided to make it all grainy). As far as the final cliff-hanger goes, I can't think of a better setting for the 50th Special than the Doctor's own decaying timeline (I'd had a theory that it might somehow take place inside his head, like in the comic The Ten Doctors but this is even better).
Not so sure about the Big Bold Text flying up to introduce John Hurt at the end. I don't actually know who John Hurt is (though everyone says that he's wonderful) and that rather jolted me out of the story. I would've preferred it ending with the Doctor saying that this was the man who forsook his own name, and leaving us all to ponder on the mystery of this incarnation that the Doctor has disowned (The Valyard? The Doctor who ended the Time War? Doctor Zero? Grandfather Paradox? The Mysterious Other from Gallifreyan mythology? Who is it?).
My thoughts are that it's the Doctor who ended the Time War, a lost incarnation between Eight and Nine. Especially after the bit in the last episode with Emperor Porridge saying that he just felt sorry for the bloke who had to push the button. I wouldn't mind that, but a surprise would be nice too.
I enjoyed the opening sequence with Clara running around and the constant refrain throughout the episode that she blew into the world on a leaf. She is a normal, ordinary girl after all. I know that some people are going to absolutely hate the idea of her being inserted throughout the Doctor's timeline, but I didn't mind it. It was as well done as it could be. She wasn't inserted as someone Super Special always watching out for him; she was inserted as a concerned friend saving him the only way she knew how.
(I'm still not entirely sure why the TARDIS dislikes her so much; but I'm sure that all of that meddling in the Time Lines and nearly getting her thief wiped from existence, and blasphemy of blasphemies, interfering with their first meeting probably couldn't have endeared her too much to the Old Girl)
The themes of friendship and what makes a person were strong in this. The person is the potential, the recipe, the what might be. The souffle is the result of how well you handle that recipe.
Vastra's Victorian conference call was well done. Nice touch with the tea and River's win. As with many others, I'm a bit confused by River's ghost, but her presence was necessary for the plot and didn't bother me. She is no longer Teh Specialist OMG OTP Soulmate ever, she is merely yet another ghost from his complicated past, and he loves her, as he loves all of his ghosts.
I am very, VERY pleased that the Doctor's name was never revealed, because as the episode states, his real name isn't important. Who he began life as, who he was, none of it is as important as who he has chosen to be (and, who he has chosen not to be).
The twisting timelines of the Doctor inside his tomb were unexpected, but lovely, especially with the well done voice-overs. As soon as they showed up I had two thoughts:
1. Clara is going to fall into there
and,
2. This has a bit of an eerie resemblance to the EDA Unnatural History, with Eight's "biodata" scrambled and twined around San Francisco, ripe and ready for any villain to play with
I cried a little bit when Jenny kept dying, and when Vastra had to kill Straxx. There were layers of subtly in this. I never thought that a Sontaron could be a metaphor, but the question of who Straxx is and what he might be works right back to the whole thing with souffles and recipes and choosing who you want to be.
(Okay, I'm not entirely certain that the whole souffle metaphor sits soundly with the "it's who you choose to be that's important" message, but I'll shoe-horn them together anyway)
REG!Grant was exceptionally creepy once again. I've decided (despite the utter lack of any indicators for this) that this episode makes Shalka!Doctor canon - that he is what the Great Intelligence ended up as: a lonely, displaced, not-quite-right version of the Doctor floating through space and time trying to follow a recipe he was never made to follow.
There was a feeling of building tension throughout this series and in this episode especially, the feeling that the Doctor's whole life, that Who as a whole, has been running towards this moment, that all of the little bits of knowledge picked up along the way are accumulating. That what is about to happen next is the result of half a century of story-building, really a part of that past, not just tacked on to the end.
I'm very excited for the 50th Anniversary Special at the moment (even as I wonder what, exactly, NuWho fans with no grounding of the Classic series have been making of all of these references). The cards have been dealt, the stage has been set, the secret is about to step out into the light.
Bring it on.
I feel like all of the stories this series have played on the side of danger, trying to be big and grand and new, and sometimes they've hit it on the head and sometimes they've tripped over the weight of their own ambitions and the results have been, uh, mixed *cough* Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS *cough* but that striving is still plainly evident every time. I think that's why I've really liked this series, even when I haven't, because it hasn't been playing safe. It's been the Doctor; different every time, reinventing itself every week. Well done. And visually, stunning every time even when the plots have left a bit to be desired.
(I'm going to be doing a rewatch of the first half of the series over the next few days/weeks to see what I think, since I wasn't in the best state of mind while watching them the first time. I still liked them, mostly, but I think my opinion was more than a bit impacted by inertia)
Anyway, back to the episode at hand. Reviews of the excellent Crimson Horror and the stunning Silver Nightmare will follow in time, but I want to jot down my thoughts on the finale while they're still fresh:
I was not at all expecting CGI inserts of past Doctors, but that was brilliant and as well done as it could be given the different film qualities they had to work with (I liked how they just decided to make it all grainy). As far as the final cliff-hanger goes, I can't think of a better setting for the 50th Special than the Doctor's own decaying timeline (I'd had a theory that it might somehow take place inside his head, like in the comic The Ten Doctors but this is even better).
Not so sure about the Big Bold Text flying up to introduce John Hurt at the end. I don't actually know who John Hurt is (though everyone says that he's wonderful) and that rather jolted me out of the story. I would've preferred it ending with the Doctor saying that this was the man who forsook his own name, and leaving us all to ponder on the mystery of this incarnation that the Doctor has disowned (The Valyard? The Doctor who ended the Time War? Doctor Zero? Grandfather Paradox? The Mysterious Other from Gallifreyan mythology? Who is it?).
My thoughts are that it's the Doctor who ended the Time War, a lost incarnation between Eight and Nine. Especially after the bit in the last episode with Emperor Porridge saying that he just felt sorry for the bloke who had to push the button. I wouldn't mind that, but a surprise would be nice too.
I enjoyed the opening sequence with Clara running around and the constant refrain throughout the episode that she blew into the world on a leaf. She is a normal, ordinary girl after all. I know that some people are going to absolutely hate the idea of her being inserted throughout the Doctor's timeline, but I didn't mind it. It was as well done as it could be. She wasn't inserted as someone Super Special always watching out for him; she was inserted as a concerned friend saving him the only way she knew how.
(I'm still not entirely sure why the TARDIS dislikes her so much; but I'm sure that all of that meddling in the Time Lines and nearly getting her thief wiped from existence, and blasphemy of blasphemies, interfering with their first meeting probably couldn't have endeared her too much to the Old Girl)
The themes of friendship and what makes a person were strong in this. The person is the potential, the recipe, the what might be. The souffle is the result of how well you handle that recipe.
Vastra's Victorian conference call was well done. Nice touch with the tea and River's win. As with many others, I'm a bit confused by River's ghost, but her presence was necessary for the plot and didn't bother me. She is no longer Teh Specialist OMG OTP Soulmate ever, she is merely yet another ghost from his complicated past, and he loves her, as he loves all of his ghosts.
I am very, VERY pleased that the Doctor's name was never revealed, because as the episode states, his real name isn't important. Who he began life as, who he was, none of it is as important as who he has chosen to be (and, who he has chosen not to be).
The twisting timelines of the Doctor inside his tomb were unexpected, but lovely, especially with the well done voice-overs. As soon as they showed up I had two thoughts:
1. Clara is going to fall into there
and,
2. This has a bit of an eerie resemblance to the EDA Unnatural History, with Eight's "biodata" scrambled and twined around San Francisco, ripe and ready for any villain to play with
I cried a little bit when Jenny kept dying, and when Vastra had to kill Straxx. There were layers of subtly in this. I never thought that a Sontaron could be a metaphor, but the question of who Straxx is and what he might be works right back to the whole thing with souffles and recipes and choosing who you want to be.
(Okay, I'm not entirely certain that the whole souffle metaphor sits soundly with the "it's who you choose to be that's important" message, but I'll shoe-horn them together anyway)
REG!Grant was exceptionally creepy once again. I've decided (despite the utter lack of any indicators for this) that this episode makes Shalka!Doctor canon - that he is what the Great Intelligence ended up as: a lonely, displaced, not-quite-right version of the Doctor floating through space and time trying to follow a recipe he was never made to follow.
There was a feeling of building tension throughout this series and in this episode especially, the feeling that the Doctor's whole life, that Who as a whole, has been running towards this moment, that all of the little bits of knowledge picked up along the way are accumulating. That what is about to happen next is the result of half a century of story-building, really a part of that past, not just tacked on to the end.
I'm very excited for the 50th Anniversary Special at the moment (even as I wonder what, exactly, NuWho fans with no grounding of the Classic series have been making of all of these references). The cards have been dealt, the stage has been set, the secret is about to step out into the light.
Bring it on.
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no subject
Also, why didn't Strax at least try to up and stop the GI from stepping in to the Doctor's timeline?
But yes, to all of what you said. Also adding that the TARDIS as a monument, the biggest grave on a field of battle, dying the way stars die, growing bigger and bigger until she breaks apart, was so, so sad.
I also had a thought that it was kind of like the EDA "Alien Bodies" as well, with the Doctor's "body" being so dangerous.
no subject
I'm assuming, now, that woman was Clara-after-the-jump, but who knows. I hope that's one of those plotlines that Mr. Moffat actually resolves as he's got a nasty habit of leaving them dangling.
As to why Straxx (and everyone else present) didn't do anything to stop GI from jumping into the timelines, my theory is that the GI has developed a significant ability to hypnotize and manipulate people (as seen in the Bells of St. John) which was effective for stopping the Doctor's companions (but apparently not sufficient enough to control the Doctor himself)
no subject
YES! Okay, I agreed with everything you said, but this especially.
no subject
(Now, watch me eat my words on all of this when the 50th rolls around and the Doctor's original name is revealed to be King Twiddle Thumbs or something equally daft)
no subject
Although, tbh, they had me with "what kind of idiot would want to steal a faulty TARDIS?" followed by CGI'd-in oldschool Doctors. I'm so easy, sometimes. ;D
no subject
I love that his real name is, "The Doctor" because that's the name he choose. Of all the answers they could've given to that question, I think it's the only one that respects the legacy of the show while leaving the mystery intact (and isn't completely daft).