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clo_againI don't understand how someone reviewing this episode can include the words "continues... central character dynamic" in one sentence and then in the next "offers a very different crew dynamic to previous outings". Because that doesn't make sense. You cannot be seen to *continue* something when, in fact, it's totally different and with no interlink between.
Not to mention it gets irritating when people assume "oh you only hated the episode because it involved the Doctor and romance". Bzuh? I'm the one *swearing* at the idiocy of people who see a 900 year old character and assume he's never fallen in love or had sex before. Um, yeah. Right. *Nine *hundred* years. It's a long damn time and to write anything along the lines of sex off is, well, daft. I *like* the Doctor and romance. Sure I like Doctor/Rose the most but only because it's the most canon, the most believable. The romance this week wasn't what bothered me; the kiss, him in the garden, it was cute. What *bothered* me was that it didn't fit in with previous characterisation. Had they used the romance to further what happened last week, with the Doctor beginning to distance himself from Rose then cool, it would've been interesting to watch but instead it was as if we'd missed a whole chunk of the episode. Where was Rose's relating of last week's revelations to this week's episode? Nowhere because Moffet hadn't read last week's script before writing this. Which seems the most mindbogglingly dumb thing; it's like writing the fourth chapter of the book without knowing what any of the characters had said in the third. They threw in one token allusion to Rose and Reinette's shared affection for the Doctor and that was it, brushed over. People are saying the Doctor behaved like a complete twat towards Rose this week and he did, absolutely. *Yes* he can love two people, I'll buy that. I'll buy a lot of things with this show. What I won't buy is that he can love someone one week -- actually one day, it seemed like there was less than a day or so between episodes -- and then the next leave them to die a slow death of starvation without it so much as meriting a single scene where he apologises, explains, where Rose tells him to go, SOME ACKNOWLEDGMENT.
Another person on Outpost Gallifrey -- I hate that site with passion but just had to go check the reviews to see if the blatent lack of continuity bugged them, which apparently it didn't -- put it exactly right, though I don't think it's the sense they meant it in. "...but the sexual chemistry which existed between the ninth Doctor and Rose no longer exists. And never really has done since the regeneration. Would the previous Doctor have left Rose behind on a spaceship to go to the rescue of another woman?" Exactly, he wouldn't. Because he's the *Doctor*. He may have left Rose behind on Earth, maybe even stranded her in eighteenth century France or anywhere she had any hope of establishing some sort of life without him but leaving her to die? Without a thought? Last week set up the Doctor as letting his Companions leave because he loved them and his affection for Sarah-Jane *obviously* carried between incarnations, so he loves Rose as much as Nine ever did whether that's become platonic or romantic, it doesn't matter. He left her like a shallow, selfish git and if ONE MORE PERSON uses "Oh, he's an alien" justification for it? There will be no bounds to my wrath.
Mr Moffet does apparently explain his reasons in the downloadable audio commentary and makes sense of everything which is nice of him. He explains how Rose loves the Doctor, how the Doctor loves her, how he just didn't think when he left them behind. It was all very nice and tied up loose ends and comforted all the people crying over their 'ship.
Only I just spent a week analysing Barthes' 'Death of the Author' and frankly, if about half the people who saw that episode got the impression that it didn't make sense, that the Doctor was out of character and totally git-ified? Then Moffet can explain himself until he's blue in the face and it won't matter because it wasn't in the episode. Authorial intention matters zilch when it takes an audio commentary to make viewers see that's what he meant.
I need to stop ranting about this episode. I just get upset when 'official' writers get away with things that in fanfiction would get the author ripped to shreds. Reinette? One name, two words, first one begins with M. (Not to mention her declaration that she hated the Doctor's 'world' but decided at the end that oh no, she'd love to come with him really. Is there *any* characterisation in this episode that followed on?)
I really should start doing some creative writing portfolio work. *ponders*
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Date: 2006-05-07 05:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-07 05:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-07 05:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-07 05:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-07 05:52 pm (UTC)No offense or insult is intended because I'm totally live and let live.
Fiona
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Date: 2006-05-07 06:07 pm (UTC)I personally think it's because times have changed and there was no way for the new series to avoid facing the Doctor/Companion hints head-on simply because if they didn't, people would either see it anyway or get bored with the platonic friendship. Everything comes back to sex these days. *shrugs* Of course they could've made the Doctor an old man but people still probably would've seen it and it'd simply up the weird factor.
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Date: 2006-05-07 06:34 pm (UTC)The non-biological reproduction comes from one of the novels called 'Lungbarrow' I think, I haven't read it, but it involves Looms. Which might explain the Doctor's fondness for wollen scarves anyway. That particular set of novels were made from the plots of the series that never got made when it got cancelled when Sylvester McCoy was the Doctor. Whether they're "canon" or not is a matter of personal taste so I think you should feel free to mangle away.
I can just about accept that they had to change the dynamic but I'm still grumbling about it because it's like Rose said, the Doctor's so much better than a boyfriend.
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Date: 2006-05-07 06:53 pm (UTC)Even though I don't know the history, it did seem to make sense when I read it. On the whole Who seems a pretty damn smart fandom, especially when it comes to coming up with theories.
Oh crikey, I'd forgotten how complicated huge, sprawling fandoms could be before I came to 'Who. >_< All the arguments over what's canon and what's not; it's one reason I haven't even attempted to catch up yet. Guess it does give more leeway in mangling though, given that it's so hard to prove things one way or the other.
Friends with benefits? ;) I understand what you mean though. (Besides I absolutely wouldn't want Doctor/Rose to be an established relationship in canon because it wouldn't work, especially not when it's the unresolved tension that it keeps it interesting.) What I didn't like about Girl in the Fireplace was simply that they seemed to take a huge leap in characterisation with nothing to back it up. They could have the Doctor marrying Julius Caesar and Rose growing tentacles and if they could find a way to make it believably in character I'd buy it. ;)