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Jul. 1st, 2007 09:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
doyleHuh. Lots of anger and WTFery about this one on the old flist. So, I need to watch that again, but my immediate reaction: some stuff I loved (the Master's death scene, Martha's world mission) some stuff I hated (Dobby!Ten, Martha's mission turning out to be an evangelical quest, the Tinkerbell resolution), and overall I was disappointed since this season's been by far my favourite so far and I really wanted it to end brilliantly.
I loved what had happened with Martha right until the real plan got revealed. She got Ace's arc from the NAs! Only with 100% less Daleks! And Martha the legend, and the fragments of stories we get about her escaping from Japan and walking across America: I love that stuff. But the plan is stupid. I mean, the anti-Time Lord gun was stupid so I was glad that was a red herring (you don't need a special weapon to kill a Time Lord, unless the regeneration limit's gone. Even if it is, can they regenerate from having their head cut off?) but the plan is to harness the power of prayer. It's even called that in the episode. Right, my problems with that:
- why have this happen as he's about to launch his rockets? Okay, if he's broadcasting his countdown to the world it tells everyone when to start, but what if it hadn't worked? Couldn't they have done it a month earlier and given them time for a backup plan?
- this plan boils down to 'let's pray really hard and a man we've never seen in the sky will save us'. Which is somewhat dependent on the Doctor actually being there. Yet until she sees him on the screen in the Professor's house, Martha thinks he might be dead. It's been a year. The Master could have killed him at any time, and then what?
- speaking of the Master, how has he heard no inkling of the cult of the Doctor that Martha's been spreading across the world? The plan depends on everyone knowing they have to think about the Doctor at a particular time. Wasn't there a single person like the professor who'd trade that information for the safety of a family member?
- and on that, Martha gets this message worldwide, single-handed, within a year. In a post-apocalyptic world where you'd imagine travel and telecommunication would be difficult. That makes her the most efficient apostle of all time by some way.
- it's just... argh. Martha does all this heroic stuff, becomes a legend, spends a year not knowing if her family's alive or dead and going through who knows what, but she's convinced that she deserves no credit herself and the Doctor
ETA: I think this is my problem with the whole episode. Because it's uncomfortably like those post-Lazarus Experiment fanfics where the Doctor has a big huffy tantrum about how Martha's NOT his plus one and how DARE she use a perfectly normal phrase that he used about Rose one time. It's making a character into a mouthpiece for the author even if it means making them wildly OOC or giving them knowledge they shouldn't have. It's projecting something we, the audience, know onto the characters. Yeah, we know the Doctor always saves the day. We've seen the episodes. Martha was doing the evangelical thing as far back as Gridlock, when the only thing she'd seen the Doctor do was get his blood sucked by a plasmavore. Why does she think the Doctor's pretty much a god? And why would everyone on Earth believe her?
- I really wish she'd been building an army. Everyone on Earth rising up against the Toclafane and the Master's rockets at the same moment. I wouldn't even have complained that it was a ripoff of Buffy's Graduation Day, because it would have been cool.
- "the one thing you can't do is stop them thinking". Except, he can. Last episode? Worldwide mind control? "I am the Master and you will obey me"? Sort of a major point of the character?
- unrelated, but one last thing that bothered me: it's great that Martha realises she's not second-best to Rose or anyone else. Would've been nice to have some reaction other than the Doctor standing in silence when she says this.
I did love the Master's death scene, and the Doctor's insane but tragic belief that he can Redeem Him With Love. Oh, if a good Time Lord comes back he's going to drive them mad with clinging. Romana would have to fake her own death to get away.
Martha's exit: made total sense, and the people having a good gloat about her being gone might want to wait till we get confirmation on whether she's actually left (moved to Torchwood, as I'm half suspecting). I knew she'd stay on Earth as soon as we realised the Jones' remembered what had happened (except for Leo, I assume) - she couldn't leave her family after that. Give her a year to pass her exams, for everything to go back to normal (for her to get together with hot Dr Tom?) and she can come back to the TARDIS.
Titanic? Which we know from End of the World the Doctor is on? CAN IT BE EIGHT TIEM NAO? (I know I'm in a minority, but I hope the Kylie rumour's true. That'd be fab. There's an announcement about the casting on Tuesday and I'm almost sure it'll be Kylie, though I have a tiny batshit shred of hope it's McGann.)
Oh, and it's not just me who wants Buffy crossover fic set during Martha's year-long quest, right...?
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on 2007-07-01 09:23 am (UTC)Yes - this sums up exactly my feelings about it, too.
I'm very much in two minds about LotTL. I loved Martha and loved everything which involved un-latexed, un-dobbied David Tennant interacting with Simm's Master, but there was SO MUCH that made me actually have to look away from the television for minutes at a time (The Doctor is Tinkerbell! The Doctor is Jesus!)
I'll see your plot holes and raise you:
- Why did the Doctor's plan take a whole year? In a worst case scenario -- and this WAS a worst case scenario -- he could have killed himself, forcing a regeneration into a new, young body.
- Why did the Master allow Martha to wander the planet for a whole year unmolested when he could have captured at any point by showing her family on TV and threatening to kill them unless she gave herself up? (Okay, maybe it was because he simply didn't know what she was doing, but somehow leaving a loose end -- like the Doctor's companion roaming about free -- seems very sloppy for the Master.)
Also, I am trying not to think too much about the Toclafane because the whole concept depresses the hell out of me. No matter what the Doctor does or how many times humanity survives, that's how it ends -- infantalised semi-Daleks cannibalising themselves as the stars goes out. Which really undercuts the Doctor's speech about humanity from Utopia.
Hmmmm... maybe this makes me sound more disgruntled with it than I actually was. There was a lot of stuff I liked, it's just that I've loved this season even more than the last two, and I'm disappointed that instead of everything gelling together right at the end, it seemed to fall apart.
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on 2007-07-01 10:29 am (UTC)Yes. Exactly. And it would have made sense if in his arrogance the Master just considered her another 'insect, a girl' like Chantho, someone beneath his notice, and that arrogance was what ended up leading to his death, but he's so focused on Martha: blowing up her flat, imprisoning her family. And then he just lets her go about her business for a whole year.
And yeah, I hadn't thought about that but good point on the Utopia humans - and how did they end up like that, anyway? Who sent out the 'come to Utopia' call? Who converted them into the spheres? I might optimistically choose to believe this is the arc for season 4, but I doubt it...
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on 2007-07-01 10:30 am (UTC)no subject
on 2007-07-01 11:41 am (UTC)I nod vigorously at all of your wise words, and join you in a batshit chant of EIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT! Even though it will be Kylie instead.
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on 2007-07-01 11:47 am (UTC)(Imagining such gleeful things distracts me from trying to puzzle out the theology of the DW-verse, where trusting on a god to sort out your problems = good; taking matters into your own hands, as Harriet does = bad)
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on 2007-07-01 11:57 am (UTC)I really am troubled by them literalising the 'lonely god' thing. Since when is 'I indoctrinated the entire human race to all think one thing' the plan of good/i> guys?
*goes back to planning Eight/Kylie/drunkenness/big boat*
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on 2007-07-01 12:11 pm (UTC)That would be the greatest Christmas ever. Also they could reprise that Big Finish poem where Eight spends a Christmas party trying to get off with himself, because Eight/Ten would be hot.
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on 2007-07-02 04:32 am (UTC)*adds to Christmas list*
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on 2007-07-01 11:11 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2007-07-01 09:47 am (UTC)Otherwise: word.
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on 2007-07-01 10:30 am (UTC)no subject
on 2007-07-01 10:33 am (UTC)no subject
on 2007-07-01 11:01 am (UTC)no subject
on 2007-07-01 10:14 am (UTC)The magic rewind button was a bit...
I mean, everything's back to normal but you've still got one slice'n'diced reporter, the British cabinet's been gassed and you're missing two heads of government. Plus Archangel's still broadcasting the tap-tap-tap-tap and the world just saw the British Prime Minister assassinate the US President with flying metal balls he reckons are aliens. That's the sort of thing that leads to reprisals, especially if you can't produce the body because he was an alien and the Doctor's seen too much Star Wars.
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on 2007-07-01 10:24 am (UTC)It might be Nine himself, if he had some adventures before he met Rose (Clive has that photo of him on the dock at Southampton just before the Titanic sailed) or a previous incarnation - Four mentions the Titanic a couple of times. I would love a multi-Doctor story for Christmas but I won't get my hopes up.
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on 2007-07-01 11:27 am (UTC)no subject
on 2007-07-01 11:30 am (UTC)no subject
on 2007-07-01 10:43 am (UTC)no subject
on 2007-07-01 11:02 am (UTC)no subject
on 2007-07-01 11:05 am (UTC)It definitely wasn't her sudden development of a furry fetish.
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on 2007-07-01 01:09 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2007-07-01 02:25 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2007-07-01 05:25 pm (UTC)The only answer I can come up with is that the Doctor is psychic and in the Archangel network, so Vote Saxon gets replaced with Vote Doctor.
Which isn't so very good, really. Replacing one set of brainwashing with the other.
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on 2007-07-01 05:50 pm (UTC)I actually hadn't considered the possibility that Eight was the one on the Titanic. I thought it'd be Nine. (Although Eight, Nine, Ten and Four would rock like a rocking thing.)
Oh, and it's not just me who wants Buffy crossover fic set during Martha's year-long quest, right...?
Now I'm seeing Martha getting it on randomly and near-anonymously with an eyepatch Xander, and I'm liking it. That can't be good.
Also, I just want to say--my personal batshit insane theory is that Lucy is the Rani. BECAUSE HOW AWESOME WOULD THAT BE?! It'd be like The Doctor's Crazy Evil Exes Join Forces Extraordinaire! No, I haven't been smoking crack. Why do you ask?
Oh, and I have one possible explanation for Martha being able to get the entire planet united in a single thought at the same time--in terms of how many fucking people that is. It says right at the beginning that the human race is near-extinction. I'd rate our population in that situation at somewhere between one thousand and one million (hard to peg down properly, given that we're like cockroaches--especially on "Doctor Who") and that's a LOT easier to communicate a message to within the space of a year.
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on 2007-07-01 06:09 pm (UTC)Oh HELL no. Especially as
...having said that, a "Martha's lost year" ficathon would be the height of awesome.
Maybe I can fanwank the "power of prayer" bullshit into Willow pulling some kind of magic spell at the same time, under cover of the power of prayer. That works for me.
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on 2007-07-01 09:33 pm (UTC)Luke
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on 2007-07-01 11:16 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2007-07-02 10:45 am (UTC)I... honestly don't see any other way to read it? The human race are told to concentrate on believing that a being in the sky will save them when they have no reason to believe he even exists. Potentially interesting, as you say: I'd've been fine with it if the worldwide mass of thoughts had just broken the Master's control over the Archangel network, but not only restoring the Doctor but giving him glowy magic flying powers was just far too much for me.
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on 2007-07-02 12:09 am (UTC)I'm not too fussed one way or another if Kylie does or doesn't show up on the Titanic. But I am hoping like mad that it will be Eight who's on board - Paul McGann, he deserves to be onscreen at least once more as the Doctor =)
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on 2007-07-02 03:38 am (UTC)I think a lot of my problem was just let down -- Utopia and Sound of Drums were so incredibly incredibly awesome that I think pretty much anything would have left me feeling unsatisfied. (I can gloss over a surprisingly lot of the Tinkerbell stuff and what have you. The Master and Martha's sheer awesomeness can make up for a lot, in my mind.)
And my first thought on seeing the Titanic was "Holy crap! NINE!" (And then several hours later I actually ended up waking up in the middle of the night going, "Wait, how did it manage to crash through the TARDIS, exactly?") I highly highly doubt that we would be lucky enough to get a multiple Doctors episode, but how much would it rock? (With either Eight or Nine, I am not picky.)
Also there would be mad hot Doctor/Doctor angsty "last of the time lords" shagging. At least in my headno subject
on 2007-07-02 10:47 am (UTC)no subject
on 2007-07-02 12:48 pm (UTC)There was a little of Will helping in the sparkly, flying Doctor.
I want the Eighth to be in the xmas special so much it hurts.
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on 2007-07-02 09:11 pm (UTC)And when she turned round, it wasn't to tell the Doctor about the Unrequited Rubbish, but because he called her back to say, "Martha Jones, you rock!"
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on 2007-07-05 10:12 pm (UTC)