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Doctor Who season 2
Done with season 2...
I'm constantly impressed by the writing in this series, as an anthology-type show. "Love & Monsters" was just brilliant; I loved it to pieces. This show continues to be an odd, amazing mix of total cheese and genuine suspense and pathos -- the Satan 2-parter was a good example of that, because ... they fought Satan! And in a total "Aliens"-type, monsters-on-the-spaceship, B-movie setting. That episode should have been sheer, unbearable idiocy! And yet the crew were so vividly drawn that I really didn't want them to die, and it was so tense and claustophobic on the ship, and the security guy's sacrifice made me sad, and the captain and the other two surviving at the end made me EEEEE! I've mentioned before that this show really reminds me of 1950s/60s SF books, and that episode really had that feeling to it -- total Ray Bradbury, where the setting is completely absurd and yet the writing is compelling enough that it sucks you in.
"Love and Monsters", as I said, was wonderful -- it was wonderfully, darkly funny and then took this sudden 90-degree turn into OUCH. I really love well-done outsider POVs on my canonverses, and New Who is turning out to be fantastic at doing those.
I liked the Olympic episode with the little girl, even though the ending with the Doctor lighting the torch? Hopeless, hopeless cheese! Although ... I could totally see him doing that -- seizing an opportunity to light the torch ... especially this Doctor with his pronounced showmanship streak. And I loved that the creepy baddie in that episode turned out to be a lost child trying to find its way home; such a neat twist, and so much better and more poignant than having it be something to be fought and killed.
The finale two-parter -- yay! for seeing Mickey and Jake and alt-Pete again! I really thought that we'd seen the last of them. Lots of neat moments, some giggles (because, seriously, the Dalek vs. Cybermen confrontation was hilarious in an Alien vs. Predator sort of way), and then ... uh, the ending.
I don't really want to turn this into a rant about Rose. Honestly, I'm not feeling all that ranty, because I'm mostly warm and fuzzy towards the series. But, you know, I really did lose a lot of my remaining respect for her at the end. In two years (or however long it's been for her) of traveling with the Doctor, she really hasn't learned anything. They left Mickey stranded alone in an alternate universe infested by Cybermen, and he picked up a gun and saved the world. They left Rose stranded in an alternate universe (a peaceful universe, with her parents and Mickey, no less) and she ... takes a dead-end job at the shop, cries every night and then uproots her parents and drags them across the continent in pursuit of the Doctor? I ... I ... just ... what?
I sympathize with Rose feeling like her travels with the Doctor were the high point of her life, and everything after that being downhill. Really, I do. But real inner strength is feeling that way and then getting up and going on, living your life and making a difference. And Rose doesn't seem to have that. I can sympathize with her, but I can't really find it in myself to respect her, or -- after those final scenes -- even really to like her all that much. The goodbye scene with the Doctor and Rose didn't really do a whole lot for me, because her codependency just seemed more creepy to me than anything else. All the emotion being thrown around didn't make me feel it, in the same way as some of the other emotional scenes in the last few episodes (Jackie meeting alt-Pete, the guy in "Love & Monsters" losing Ursula) made me feel them. The ending of "Fear Her", with the mom and the little girl beating back the dad's spectre by leaning on each other, actually made me tear up. But the goodbye with the Doctor and Rose ... not really. To me, Rose came across mostly as an object of pity in those last scenes.
I don't expect my characters to be paragons of virtue. I love to watch flawed people pick themselves up and fall and try again. But where Rose is at the end of her two seasons -- that's where I want my protagonists to be at the beginning. Depending on another person for all your self-esteem needs and being pretty useless without them ... that's a great starting point, but not really much of an ending point. At least, that's my take on the whole thing. She's had her moments, and yes, there have been times when she's done things that are really impressive and self-sacrificing. But at the end, she's still pursuing the Doctor and using the people around her as objects of convenience; she's still fixated on him to the exclusion of living her life. And, I'm sorry, but that's just not healthy, and something that I feel needs to be fixed in her.
Er, I guess it did turn into a rant on Rose. Um. Sorry. Really, it's the only thing in the series that bugs me, but it's just such a big, ever-present thing, so I guess I fixate on it.
But now we get Season 3! And then we are done! Eeek!
I'm constantly impressed by the writing in this series, as an anthology-type show. "Love & Monsters" was just brilliant; I loved it to pieces. This show continues to be an odd, amazing mix of total cheese and genuine suspense and pathos -- the Satan 2-parter was a good example of that, because ... they fought Satan! And in a total "Aliens"-type, monsters-on-the-spaceship, B-movie setting. That episode should have been sheer, unbearable idiocy! And yet the crew were so vividly drawn that I really didn't want them to die, and it was so tense and claustophobic on the ship, and the security guy's sacrifice made me sad, and the captain and the other two surviving at the end made me EEEEE! I've mentioned before that this show really reminds me of 1950s/60s SF books, and that episode really had that feeling to it -- total Ray Bradbury, where the setting is completely absurd and yet the writing is compelling enough that it sucks you in.
"Love and Monsters", as I said, was wonderful -- it was wonderfully, darkly funny and then took this sudden 90-degree turn into OUCH. I really love well-done outsider POVs on my canonverses, and New Who is turning out to be fantastic at doing those.
I liked the Olympic episode with the little girl, even though the ending with the Doctor lighting the torch? Hopeless, hopeless cheese! Although ... I could totally see him doing that -- seizing an opportunity to light the torch ... especially this Doctor with his pronounced showmanship streak. And I loved that the creepy baddie in that episode turned out to be a lost child trying to find its way home; such a neat twist, and so much better and more poignant than having it be something to be fought and killed.
The finale two-parter -- yay! for seeing Mickey and Jake and alt-Pete again! I really thought that we'd seen the last of them. Lots of neat moments, some giggles (because, seriously, the Dalek vs. Cybermen confrontation was hilarious in an Alien vs. Predator sort of way), and then ... uh, the ending.
I don't really want to turn this into a rant about Rose. Honestly, I'm not feeling all that ranty, because I'm mostly warm and fuzzy towards the series. But, you know, I really did lose a lot of my remaining respect for her at the end. In two years (or however long it's been for her) of traveling with the Doctor, she really hasn't learned anything. They left Mickey stranded alone in an alternate universe infested by Cybermen, and he picked up a gun and saved the world. They left Rose stranded in an alternate universe (a peaceful universe, with her parents and Mickey, no less) and she ... takes a dead-end job at the shop, cries every night and then uproots her parents and drags them across the continent in pursuit of the Doctor? I ... I ... just ... what?
I sympathize with Rose feeling like her travels with the Doctor were the high point of her life, and everything after that being downhill. Really, I do. But real inner strength is feeling that way and then getting up and going on, living your life and making a difference. And Rose doesn't seem to have that. I can sympathize with her, but I can't really find it in myself to respect her, or -- after those final scenes -- even really to like her all that much. The goodbye scene with the Doctor and Rose didn't really do a whole lot for me, because her codependency just seemed more creepy to me than anything else. All the emotion being thrown around didn't make me feel it, in the same way as some of the other emotional scenes in the last few episodes (Jackie meeting alt-Pete, the guy in "Love & Monsters" losing Ursula) made me feel them. The ending of "Fear Her", with the mom and the little girl beating back the dad's spectre by leaning on each other, actually made me tear up. But the goodbye with the Doctor and Rose ... not really. To me, Rose came across mostly as an object of pity in those last scenes.
I don't expect my characters to be paragons of virtue. I love to watch flawed people pick themselves up and fall and try again. But where Rose is at the end of her two seasons -- that's where I want my protagonists to be at the beginning. Depending on another person for all your self-esteem needs and being pretty useless without them ... that's a great starting point, but not really much of an ending point. At least, that's my take on the whole thing. She's had her moments, and yes, there have been times when she's done things that are really impressive and self-sacrificing. But at the end, she's still pursuing the Doctor and using the people around her as objects of convenience; she's still fixated on him to the exclusion of living her life. And, I'm sorry, but that's just not healthy, and something that I feel needs to be fixed in her.
Er, I guess it did turn into a rant on Rose. Um. Sorry. Really, it's the only thing in the series that bugs me, but it's just such a big, ever-present thing, so I guess I fixate on it.
But now we get Season 3! And then we are done! Eeek!