In which she re-views New Who series 1
Jul. 18th, 2010 02:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zeborahOne thing about being sick (better now! mostly, anyway) is that it gave me a lot of free time, not all of which I swallowed up by playing Solitaire. So I've been watching from the start of series 1 and have noticed a couple of things.
1) Father's Day doesn't actually set up a bunch of rules about time travel that are subsequently forgotten. It's not that you can't change history or the bugs will get you, and it's not that you can't touch your earlier self or terrible things will happen. It's that if you weaken space/time by having two sets of yourself in one place and then change history... then you're at risk of (possible but not inevitable) infection. And if you've already got infection going on and then touch your earlier self... then that gives the infection a chance to spread.
2) There's a big theme of accepting responsibility going on. The good guys accept the responsibility for their mistakes (or just for fixing what needs fixing, regardless of whether they broken it); the bad guys try to pass the buck.
See the undertaker of the Unquiet Dead whose insistence that the spirits inhabiting "the stiffs" aren't his fault.
See companion Adam, whose meddling with alien tech ends up betraying the Doctor's identity to the Editor. It's not made explicit that the Doctor would have forgiven him if he'd just owned up to his mistake and apologised, but I bet he would have (well, though see #3). What we do see is Adam making excuse after excuse (not even decent excuses like "Technology like that could alleviate the suffering of billions!") and looking more and more of a git.
See how Rose accepts responsibility for what she's caused in Father's Day. And how her father accepts responsibility for fixing it. (My eyes may have got a bit of dust in at some point while watching this.)
See Jack, whose meddling with alien tech ends up infecting a bunch of people with gas masks and an Oedipus complex. Again Jack is portrayed negatively in how he insists that the alien ship has nothing to do with what's going on; but he redeems himself by saving Rose and the Doctor when he has the chance to escape by himself.
See how the plot is only resolved when Nancy takes responsibility for the situation and for her son. [Which is not to dis her decision to keep that secret as far as society's concerned - not just for her reputation, but to avoid, say, Jamie being taken away from her and sent off to Australia or something.]
See the Doctor's continual angst over his actions in the Time War.
And see how the Doctor constantly takes responsibility for Rose's safety, and agonises over his inability to protect her. Um, except this is where…
3) I don't actually like Nine anymore.
This is weird. I remembered liking him more than Ten. And if he weren't a Time Lord the romance with Rose would be kind of sweet. But... there's points where this gets a bit creepy. Even aside from the age gap, I mean.
Like in Father's Day, where he's shouting at her about being just another dumb ape and then they make up like this:
Doctor: Just say you're sorry.
Rose: I am.
Doctor: <smiles>
Not a small smile. Not a soft smile. A really cheerful smile. I'm absolutely certain no-one intended to portray this as "the Doctor is glad he's forced Rose to say she's sorry so that she has to be grateful for him forgiving her" but that's exactly what the smile looks like.
Earlier in the episode Rose accuses him of being annoyed that she cares more about her father than about him. And I think this is meant to be only half-true, but you know what? It goes a long way to explaining why he dislikes her mother (who's a bit abrasive, perhaps, and not sufficiently respectful of his elite Time Lordshipness, but on the other hand her daughter was missing for a year because of him) so much that he's positively gleeful at having the chance to order her around.
And it goes a long way to explaining why he so irrationally dislikes Mickey and keeps calling him "Ricky" and "useless" even after Mickey kind of like totally helps save the planet.
See also how he's jealous of Adam and Jack. But that's just because he's falling in love with Rose, right? It's totally romantic, right? Apart from the fact that he does it while acting like an emotionally abusive creepface.
I'm suddenly feeling like I've seen all this said before, and probably rebutted too. But I liked Nine and would excuse him if I could, but when I was already feeling a bit uncomfortable that smile was seriously ew.
1) Father's Day doesn't actually set up a bunch of rules about time travel that are subsequently forgotten. It's not that you can't change history or the bugs will get you, and it's not that you can't touch your earlier self or terrible things will happen. It's that if you weaken space/time by having two sets of yourself in one place and then change history... then you're at risk of (possible but not inevitable) infection. And if you've already got infection going on and then touch your earlier self... then that gives the infection a chance to spread.
2) There's a big theme of accepting responsibility going on. The good guys accept the responsibility for their mistakes (or just for fixing what needs fixing, regardless of whether they broken it); the bad guys try to pass the buck.
See the undertaker of the Unquiet Dead whose insistence that the spirits inhabiting "the stiffs" aren't his fault.
See companion Adam, whose meddling with alien tech ends up betraying the Doctor's identity to the Editor. It's not made explicit that the Doctor would have forgiven him if he'd just owned up to his mistake and apologised, but I bet he would have (well, though see #3). What we do see is Adam making excuse after excuse (not even decent excuses like "Technology like that could alleviate the suffering of billions!") and looking more and more of a git.
See how Rose accepts responsibility for what she's caused in Father's Day. And how her father accepts responsibility for fixing it. (My eyes may have got a bit of dust in at some point while watching this.)
See Jack, whose meddling with alien tech ends up infecting a bunch of people with gas masks and an Oedipus complex. Again Jack is portrayed negatively in how he insists that the alien ship has nothing to do with what's going on; but he redeems himself by saving Rose and the Doctor when he has the chance to escape by himself.
See how the plot is only resolved when Nancy takes responsibility for the situation and for her son. [Which is not to dis her decision to keep that secret as far as society's concerned - not just for her reputation, but to avoid, say, Jamie being taken away from her and sent off to Australia or something.]
See the Doctor's continual angst over his actions in the Time War.
And see how the Doctor constantly takes responsibility for Rose's safety, and agonises over his inability to protect her. Um, except this is where…
3) I don't actually like Nine anymore.
This is weird. I remembered liking him more than Ten. And if he weren't a Time Lord the romance with Rose would be kind of sweet. But... there's points where this gets a bit creepy. Even aside from the age gap, I mean.
Like in Father's Day, where he's shouting at her about being just another dumb ape and then they make up like this:
Doctor: Just say you're sorry.
Rose: I am.
Doctor: <smiles>
Not a small smile. Not a soft smile. A really cheerful smile. I'm absolutely certain no-one intended to portray this as "the Doctor is glad he's forced Rose to say she's sorry so that she has to be grateful for him forgiving her" but that's exactly what the smile looks like.
Earlier in the episode Rose accuses him of being annoyed that she cares more about her father than about him. And I think this is meant to be only half-true, but you know what? It goes a long way to explaining why he dislikes her mother (who's a bit abrasive, perhaps, and not sufficiently respectful of his elite Time Lordshipness, but on the other hand her daughter was missing for a year because of him) so much that he's positively gleeful at having the chance to order her around.
And it goes a long way to explaining why he so irrationally dislikes Mickey and keeps calling him "Ricky" and "useless" even after Mickey kind of like totally helps save the planet.
See also how he's jealous of Adam and Jack. But that's just because he's falling in love with Rose, right? It's totally romantic, right? Apart from the fact that he does it while acting like an emotionally abusive creepface.
I'm suddenly feeling like I've seen all this said before, and probably rebutted too. But I liked Nine and would excuse him if I could, but when I was already feeling a bit uncomfortable that smile was seriously ew.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-18 08:29 am (UTC)If the human happens to have their own time machine and (perhaps as a result thereof) to have their own independent experience of the universe, otoh, I suddenly feel much better about it.
(Ooh, I'm envious of you getting to watch it all fresh! Hope you enjoy!)
no subject
Date: 2010-07-21 02:18 am (UTC)It's fun to watch something I'm already sure is pretty good. I should watch more shows that I'm years behind on.