We only want what's best for you; that's why we tell you what to do

[clo_again]

I am getting very, very tired of them replaying this the Doctor has guilt for dragging his Companions to their deaths theme. Seriously. He drops Amy and Rory off outside a brand new house and says "Stay here! It'll be an adventure, living in a house in Cardiff* together! And you have to, because I don't want to get you killed. I'd feel terrible."**



Dear Doctor (but actually, the Doctor Who writers),

That is a LOAD OF BULLSHIT.

Leaving aside the SAVING THE UNIVERSE factor for a second, compare this: all of time and space, fantastic planets, fabulous (and less fabulous, sometimes) aliens, magic bigger-on-the-inside-spaceship, getting to travel with a 900-year-old alien genius, getting to interact with intergalactic politics and having the Doctor there to explain it all, BIGGER ON THE INSIDE, etc etc. You know how people go backpacking to New Zealand*** and do things like throw themselves off bridges attached to bits of elastic, and out of planes with flimsy bits of cloth strapped to their backs, and pay an awful lots of money for these (fairly mundane in comparison to travel in time and space) thrills? Yeah. That's because it's the one of the best kinds of extreme thrill our planet has to offer; we're limited to this tiny little ball of rock and people empty their bank accounts and happily risk the life-threatening side-effects of bungee-jumping to fly to the other side of it and throw themselves off things for thirty seconds of extreme rush, just for example. They also do things like climb Earth's Seven Summits by the age of 16 and fly solo around the world in a plane built of donated parts. People live for six months in a tiny metal box known as the ISS, sending Tweets, writing blogs+, taking incredible pictures.

In short, people go to massive amounts of effort, time, expense and personal risk for new, exciting, fabulous experiences that sometimes achieve something scientific and sometimes achieve nothing more than an adrenaline rush for an hour or so.

Now think about being a Companion to the Doctor. It's like being a backpacker but on an intergalactic scale. Oh, and free. And you have the best tour guide in the world all the time and you learn things no one else could teach you and yes, the risk is exponentially greater than throwing yourself off bridges in Wanaka NZ, but you're getting a lot more than a thirty-second adrenaline rush and you don't have to share a hostel room with five guys who snore++ to do it. Your method of travel is a bigger-than-a-hotel-inside box with a swimming pool and a library and your own bedroom and while occasionally you'll crash-land or wonder if your pilot took his flying test while drunk (or indeed if he even took a flying test at all) there's a middling-fair chance you'll land in one piece and somewhere spectacularly interesting on weeks when the show hasn't exhausted its budget (in which case it'll be a quarry in Wales. It'll probably be raining too, sorry. Bet you'd still rather have that than five snoring guys).

For the right kind of person (and there are a lot of people out there who would be the 'right kind of people' to be a Companion; at least half of the hundreds of backpackers I met would qualify, as would all the people I've linked to above and thousands more like them) it is the ultimate trip. Forget around the world; try around the entire universe. Oh, and did I mention that it also travels in time?

I think a trip like that is more than worth a little extra risk. If you get eaten by space tigers three months in, you'll still have had the best three months you could ever have in your entire life. Better space tigers than going blind from a bungee-jump any day.


Secondly, there's the little matter of oh, saving people's lives and occasionally the entire universe on an almost-weekly basis. Look at what happened in 'Turn Left' when the Doctor's companion was taken out the equation; look at how many millions more people died overall. People go off to other countries to get shot at on a daily basis in the hope of saving lives or protecting them; they get blown up and crippled and very often, it must feel like their individual actions get lost in the bigger picture. The Doctor's companions save the world a lot. They get to see it being saved, because of things they did! And they hardly get shot at all. You don't think they might say risk is worth it?


So honestly, Doctor, saying you're leaving people behind to live in a terraced house in Wales for their own good is, as stated, bullshit. It is not your call. They want to risk their lives to see all of time and space, well, it's their lives. Astronauts strap themselves to giant burning rockets for less. Sure, you don't want to get people killed or mind-wiped or trapped in alternate universes but no one wants to get detatched retinas or broken backs from bungee-jumping either; they still throw themselves off the damn bridge.

I know you sometimes need to write actors out. I know Billie wanted to go off and strut around on ITV in lingerie; I know you can't have the Daleks killing everyone like you did to Lynda-with-a-y; I know you can't keep collecting all the interesting one-off characters to be companions because of budget and time and story constraints. But stop using this utterly ridiculous For Your Own Good trope.+++ It isn't for their own good because they don't want to leave and it's certainly not for the Doctor's because he sulks like an emo cat who never gets the cream without companions. It's stupid lazy reasoning, it's been done over and over again in this show, and it needs to stop.

Especially when we all know the Ponds are coming back for the finale anyway. You couldn't have just dropped them off for some R&R in their new house as an apology for giving them a couple of crap weeks? No. Because that's actually logical.

No love AT ALL for your lazy half-assedness,


Clo

p.s. You had a freaking 'Minotaur' in a maze of corridors in this ep; would it have killed you to make a reference to Theseus and using some magic string? (If you did and I missed it because I had two parents, a brother, his gf, and two Yorkshire terriers yapping at me, I apologise).



* Whenever they show houses and streets, it's really obvious that they film in Cardiff because most of Cardiff is built of that grey stone and with that style of house.

**(my mother wouldn't shut up during that scene but that's the gist I got).

*** If you're a Kiwi, I imagine you might go backpacking to the UK. I apologise; it's terribly unexciting in comparison. Then again, you live in a country where it's possible to throw yourself off a bridge tied to some elastic in every other town, so perhaps Cream Teas and historic buildings are pleasantly relaxing in comparison.

+ I had a wonderful from-space blog link for this that I read only a couple of days ago but now I can't find it anywhere. Argh. Google ISS blogs; you'll get something interesting.

++ Yes, I have. Yes, it was awful. If I can tell you only on thing about backpacking as a girl, it's to go for female-only dorms wherever possible. Trust me. You will sleep a lot better.

+++ I Googled 'TV tropes for your own good' and was delighted to find one actually existed. Also, I apologise sincerely for linking to TV Tropes. Did you have plans for your evening? Er. Sorry.




Oh dear. That got rather long for a rant about one rather small issue. It does annoy me beyond words when the 'Who writers get lazy though because goddammit, they're writing for a BBC flagship show with decades of history, possibly one of the best writing jobs in television, and then they don't try. ARGH.

Also, I didn't really like tonight's episode overall. Pretty sure there were plot holes large enough to sink the Titanic in, even if I was being climbed over by two Yorkshire Terriers for most of the episode and it was hard to keep track. Sigh, Who. Why is it that you have to follow every good episode with a ridiculous one?

~

In real-life news, this has been a particularly stressful week and I'm very glad it's over. Suffice to say I was coming home on the train on Thursday trying not to cry and Googling "running away to Borneo to live with monkeys' on my phone as an actual feasible life plan. I hope next week is better.

Comments

[chickybee32.livejournal.com]

Even though I'm so far behind on 'Who it's a little embarrassing, now all I want is fic where Amy & Rory (or any former Companion really) attempt to cope with a normal life after being Companions.

[clo.livejournal.com]

I remember reading a lovely little one-shot with post-s4-Donna talking to an-unamed-but-implied-Rose somewhere in some tropical country and not recognising her but buggered if I can find it in my memories. I did find Donna meeting Nine in Egypt which isn't really normal life but is good. I don't really have many Companions-only fics memoried actually which is weird, because Companions-trying-to-cope-with-normal fic sounds awesome.

For involving-normal-life recs, I can only manage:


Norwegian Journey, Rose post-Doomsday, (AU from then on)


April In My Arms, Doctor/Donna - after being sneak-attacked in attending Martha's wedding, the Doctor decides he wants to get married and ends up turning himself human and getting a job where Donna works. SURPRISINGLY less cracky and way more amazing than it sounds. :D (Yes this is sort of cheating because it's Doctor-centric but Donna is amazing working in her mundane jobs and a bunch of other Companions show up too).


This House Is Not For Sale, Rose/Ten, AU from the ending of The Impossible Planet and yeah, this is cheating too because it's Doctor-centric but I love that Rose copes with the everyday in the 25th century much better than the Doctor.

And post-s4-Donna coping with normal life after being a Companion by being not normal at all: Footsteps in the Sand and the sequel That Which Isn't Broken (Do Not Fix).

And for trying-to-be-normal-and-failing, there's Notes on the Domestication of Birds which is cheating because it's Doctor-centric Ten/Rose again but the Doctor works in a supermarket and Rose tries to deal with being married to someone who didn't used to be human and their daughter thinks her school teacher is an alien. Yes it's the standard Doctor-turns-human-has-baby-fic but it's actually amazing.

You might like Damaged People too. It's Jack Harkness and Sam Tyler gallivanting through time, space and multiple fandoms on a wave of angst. It's incredibly well-written and worh reading, even only updates about once a year.


I need to start reading Whofic again. There must be some brilliant stuff with the Ponds out there.

[chickybee32.livejournal.com]

Oooh thanks!

What I'd originally meant to say before the idea of fic distracted me, was that 'It's for your own good because I say so' is one of my most hated justifications for doing things. Cause what it usually comes down to is guilt tripping someone into doing what you want them to do for your own selfish reasons.(I was so much more eloquent about it than this the other day btw)

[make-a-move.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit irritated that they seem to have a rather laissez-faire attitude to finding Melody. I know they know that she grows up to be River Song, but... this si your kid. Your tiny little baby, snatched away from you. Surely you'd be searching a little harder than, 'oh, hey, if you see her, tell her to drop by.'