![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatJust finished watching the Doctor Who Season Finale for whatever season this is. Honestly after a television series hits seven, I lose track.
Rather enjoyed it, much more than anticipated. Huge improvement over the last few episodes. Although I did like Eaters of the Light.
Actually, I've figured out a pattern in regards to my Doctor Who watching...I appear to like the seasons that do not over-emphasize the importance or value of the leads. I think that was my difficulty with the Clara story arc, I liked the character well enough, just couldn't stand the whole "chosen" or "impossible" or "most important girl in all the world" bit. Same with the tenth Doctor, I liked Tennant, and the series as long as it wasn't doing the whole lonely god bit.
Also for the first time since Derek Jacobi portrayed him in the Clockmaker at the End of the Universe, I actually found "the Master/Missy" interesting as a character. Missy was interesting this season, while I'd merely found her irritating in previous seasons.
Rather enjoyed the emphasis on agency, and in regards to gender and form. That the particular body or form we are in is not all that important. And it's not about winning or what we can get out of it, or playing god, or being important, or victorious or a hero... but about kindness. Being kind.
1. Bill's arc worked for me. Unlike most of the Doctor's companions, Bill is provided a choice by someone other than the Doctor. The Doctor isn't able to save Bill or protect her. Instead Bill sort of saves and protects the Doctor, after the Doctor fails her. Similar in some respects to Doctor Song. Except in this instance, Bill is freed and given the choice to be whatever she wishes to be, and not encased as an echo in a Library. Nor is she mind-wiped like Donna. Or sent back and stuck in an alternate time line like Rose and Amy and Rory.
Instead she's reunited with her first love, the Pilot. And the Pilot tells her that she'd left Bill her tears. And it was through tears the Pilot saved her. Water. A lovely metaphor for freedom.
And for life. And infinity. Pilot gives Bill a choice, she can travel the universe and be like Pilot, or become human again and live on earth. But prior to deciding, she'd like to show Bill around, giver her a taste. Bill responds -- since you left, I've been through a lot, changed, and seen, I'd like to show you around. And together, equals, they flow outward into the universe, united.
That has to be the most satisfying companion arc that I've seen in the series. Also, I like the commentary on when Bill's seen as a cyberman, on her skewed perception can be. That she's not what they've turned her into, that she can and eventually does with the help of love, flow out of it.
2. For once, I liked the Cybermen as a villain. They were created by the Master, who lied to the people saying he was saving them, providing them with a evolutionary upgrade to handle a failing atmosphere. And they think they are on a rescue mission, to become immortal. But in truth, are forever in pain, locked inside metal bodies. Immortality comes with a cost. And in becoming these metal bodies lose the ability to value life.
Here, they are truly scary, the stuff of nightmares. Seen as stumbling faceless patients, with medical tubes up their arms, muttering kill me, pain, pain...until shot and strung up like scare-crows. Either scare-crows, zombies, or machines...mindless, chasing children, to change them into themselves.
The metaphor regarding sickness, and our fear of it. The fear of contagion. Bill's heart being replaced with a metal one, and being unable to hug -- because it hurts the other person when she does so. Yet, she can cry. She can feel. And she cares deeply. The metal heart changes nothing. She's the tin-man, but without any hollowness.
It's the worst thing they can do to her or the Doctor, similar in a way to Clara becoming a Darlek.
And yet, she has agency. She doesn't let them take her over.
3. The Master and Missy.
I was rather pleased to see John Simm make a reappearance as the Master, it made me appreciate Missy more and how she'd changed. Also to see them react to each other, more so, to see Missy react to her former self...and be pained by it. Knowing that the only way she could help the Doctor was to con both the Doctor and her former self.
How she and the Master die is fitting. She stabs him fatally in the chest, knowing he'll regenerate into her. And he, unable to let her stand with the Doctor, his old nemesis, shoots her in the back instead -- a fatal blow that kills her...the fatal blow that the Doctor had refused to weild.
She'll not regenerate or so we're told. Both lie dying along with their Tardis on the way through the Black Hole.
4. I hand-waved the science in this, you sort of have to. The writers clearly aren't scientists. Not that I am either, but I know that you can't survive that close to a black hole. What happens is you are stretched and flattened like a pancake. The molecules and atoms pulled apart.
But, a lot of movies and tv shows have played with black holes and ignored this. So...
Also, Doctor Who is a lot of things, but it's not really hard science fiction. Or accurate science fiction.
5. The Doctor's Last Scene with the Master and Missy...and what he says, I loved.
No...you don't get it. It's not about winning. It's never been about winning. I don't do this to win anything. OR to beat someone. I want to save these people, not to help myself or prove myself in any way. OR because it is easy. Because it's not. It's really hard. But because it is the right thing to do. No, more than that, because it is Kind. I do it to be kind. If you listen to me at all, pray remember this...the most important thing is to be kind.
The Master is all ego. Yet alone. Isolated. His powerful or so he thinks. Immortal or so he thinks. A god or so he thinks. Look at me! Look at what I created! I will win!
And yet he is easily beaten by himself or herself.
When he baits The Doctor, the Doctor states, "Knock yourself out" and Missy complies.
And in the end she kills herself, and he kills her. She's knows more than he does, just as this Doctor knows more than his previous iterations...he knows they aren't gods, they aren't that important, they aren't infallible, and they can't promise people like Bill that they won't get them killed...and the best they can do is find a way somehow to be better, to do the right thing, to be kind.
Nardol's kindness to the inhabitants of the ship is rewarded with their trust. He doesn't exaggerate his importance, he just helps, and works with them as part of a team.
6. Nardol's arc works as well, he finds a people, a family, that accepts him. His willingness to help them, lending his skills, without emphasizing his own importance. Saves them and himself.
7. The two episodes much like the rest of this season are in a way a commentary on what is happening in the world around us. Where one too many Masters and Missy's are jumping about vying for power and control. All things are inevitable says the Doctor, including Trump. We need to be kind, think less about our own self-importance, he seems to state.
These two episodes are in a way a 180 from the lonely god and impossible/most important girl arcs of yesteryear...tragic yet uplifting...with the mortal flowing out into the stars with her companion, beams of water and light in an ever expanding universe...while the immortals, the powerful, with their sonic screwdrivers, white British men and women, lords of time and space, lie dying in the debris...impaled on their own self-importance.
8. The final sequence, where the Doctor much like his earlier iterations, fights regeneration. Not desiring to change again. Except unlike Ten, who feared the death of his ego, the death of the self he'd carefully constructed, this version just is tired of changing. He doesn't fear death, he depises changing again, being in yet another new body.
A metaphor regarding our society's own fears of change or evolution. Moving from one space to the next in the timeline.
He doesn't wish to be reborn.
So...screaming, he's The original Doctor! He finds himself face to face with himself, but a much much earlier version...old like he is, and possibly the first one. The true original. Thirteen or is it Twelve is faced now, with number 1?
In addition, Moffat makes a point in this episode of stating that the Doctor can be male or female, that his society is beyond such binary concepts as gender. Gender isn't an issue. Bill retorts, "then why call yourselves Time Lords?" The show comments on itself and its own ingrained sexism, nationalism, and racism within the episode. And not always subtly.
It has done so all season long. Questioning how people identify, questioning indeed how it indentifies and labels itself.
Writing all this down, I realize how much I loved these two episodes, how deeply they resonated with me, I find myself repeating bits in my head.
Best two episodes of the season, and best that I've seen in the last two or three years. Also an very good ending to Moffat's arc on the series. I will miss Moffat, since I've more or less enjoyed his writing in everything he's done. I think his next project is Dracula of all things.
Overall rating? A
[As an aside, the US got tired of waiting on the British and created their own personal female 007, with Atomic Blond. Charlize Theron plays the titular agent role, and James McAvoy the love interest/male squeeze we may not be able to trust. I may have to see that.]
Rather enjoyed it, much more than anticipated. Huge improvement over the last few episodes. Although I did like Eaters of the Light.
Actually, I've figured out a pattern in regards to my Doctor Who watching...I appear to like the seasons that do not over-emphasize the importance or value of the leads. I think that was my difficulty with the Clara story arc, I liked the character well enough, just couldn't stand the whole "chosen" or "impossible" or "most important girl in all the world" bit. Same with the tenth Doctor, I liked Tennant, and the series as long as it wasn't doing the whole lonely god bit.
Also for the first time since Derek Jacobi portrayed him in the Clockmaker at the End of the Universe, I actually found "the Master/Missy" interesting as a character. Missy was interesting this season, while I'd merely found her irritating in previous seasons.
Rather enjoyed the emphasis on agency, and in regards to gender and form. That the particular body or form we are in is not all that important. And it's not about winning or what we can get out of it, or playing god, or being important, or victorious or a hero... but about kindness. Being kind.
1. Bill's arc worked for me. Unlike most of the Doctor's companions, Bill is provided a choice by someone other than the Doctor. The Doctor isn't able to save Bill or protect her. Instead Bill sort of saves and protects the Doctor, after the Doctor fails her. Similar in some respects to Doctor Song. Except in this instance, Bill is freed and given the choice to be whatever she wishes to be, and not encased as an echo in a Library. Nor is she mind-wiped like Donna. Or sent back and stuck in an alternate time line like Rose and Amy and Rory.
Instead she's reunited with her first love, the Pilot. And the Pilot tells her that she'd left Bill her tears. And it was through tears the Pilot saved her. Water. A lovely metaphor for freedom.
And for life. And infinity. Pilot gives Bill a choice, she can travel the universe and be like Pilot, or become human again and live on earth. But prior to deciding, she'd like to show Bill around, giver her a taste. Bill responds -- since you left, I've been through a lot, changed, and seen, I'd like to show you around. And together, equals, they flow outward into the universe, united.
That has to be the most satisfying companion arc that I've seen in the series. Also, I like the commentary on when Bill's seen as a cyberman, on her skewed perception can be. That she's not what they've turned her into, that she can and eventually does with the help of love, flow out of it.
2. For once, I liked the Cybermen as a villain. They were created by the Master, who lied to the people saying he was saving them, providing them with a evolutionary upgrade to handle a failing atmosphere. And they think they are on a rescue mission, to become immortal. But in truth, are forever in pain, locked inside metal bodies. Immortality comes with a cost. And in becoming these metal bodies lose the ability to value life.
Here, they are truly scary, the stuff of nightmares. Seen as stumbling faceless patients, with medical tubes up their arms, muttering kill me, pain, pain...until shot and strung up like scare-crows. Either scare-crows, zombies, or machines...mindless, chasing children, to change them into themselves.
The metaphor regarding sickness, and our fear of it. The fear of contagion. Bill's heart being replaced with a metal one, and being unable to hug -- because it hurts the other person when she does so. Yet, she can cry. She can feel. And she cares deeply. The metal heart changes nothing. She's the tin-man, but without any hollowness.
It's the worst thing they can do to her or the Doctor, similar in a way to Clara becoming a Darlek.
And yet, she has agency. She doesn't let them take her over.
3. The Master and Missy.
I was rather pleased to see John Simm make a reappearance as the Master, it made me appreciate Missy more and how she'd changed. Also to see them react to each other, more so, to see Missy react to her former self...and be pained by it. Knowing that the only way she could help the Doctor was to con both the Doctor and her former self.
How she and the Master die is fitting. She stabs him fatally in the chest, knowing he'll regenerate into her. And he, unable to let her stand with the Doctor, his old nemesis, shoots her in the back instead -- a fatal blow that kills her...the fatal blow that the Doctor had refused to weild.
She'll not regenerate or so we're told. Both lie dying along with their Tardis on the way through the Black Hole.
4. I hand-waved the science in this, you sort of have to. The writers clearly aren't scientists. Not that I am either, but I know that you can't survive that close to a black hole. What happens is you are stretched and flattened like a pancake. The molecules and atoms pulled apart.
But, a lot of movies and tv shows have played with black holes and ignored this. So...
Also, Doctor Who is a lot of things, but it's not really hard science fiction. Or accurate science fiction.
5. The Doctor's Last Scene with the Master and Missy...and what he says, I loved.
No...you don't get it. It's not about winning. It's never been about winning. I don't do this to win anything. OR to beat someone. I want to save these people, not to help myself or prove myself in any way. OR because it is easy. Because it's not. It's really hard. But because it is the right thing to do. No, more than that, because it is Kind. I do it to be kind. If you listen to me at all, pray remember this...the most important thing is to be kind.
The Master is all ego. Yet alone. Isolated. His powerful or so he thinks. Immortal or so he thinks. A god or so he thinks. Look at me! Look at what I created! I will win!
And yet he is easily beaten by himself or herself.
When he baits The Doctor, the Doctor states, "Knock yourself out" and Missy complies.
And in the end she kills herself, and he kills her. She's knows more than he does, just as this Doctor knows more than his previous iterations...he knows they aren't gods, they aren't that important, they aren't infallible, and they can't promise people like Bill that they won't get them killed...and the best they can do is find a way somehow to be better, to do the right thing, to be kind.
Nardol's kindness to the inhabitants of the ship is rewarded with their trust. He doesn't exaggerate his importance, he just helps, and works with them as part of a team.
6. Nardol's arc works as well, he finds a people, a family, that accepts him. His willingness to help them, lending his skills, without emphasizing his own importance. Saves them and himself.
7. The two episodes much like the rest of this season are in a way a commentary on what is happening in the world around us. Where one too many Masters and Missy's are jumping about vying for power and control. All things are inevitable says the Doctor, including Trump. We need to be kind, think less about our own self-importance, he seems to state.
These two episodes are in a way a 180 from the lonely god and impossible/most important girl arcs of yesteryear...tragic yet uplifting...with the mortal flowing out into the stars with her companion, beams of water and light in an ever expanding universe...while the immortals, the powerful, with their sonic screwdrivers, white British men and women, lords of time and space, lie dying in the debris...impaled on their own self-importance.
8. The final sequence, where the Doctor much like his earlier iterations, fights regeneration. Not desiring to change again. Except unlike Ten, who feared the death of his ego, the death of the self he'd carefully constructed, this version just is tired of changing. He doesn't fear death, he depises changing again, being in yet another new body.
A metaphor regarding our society's own fears of change or evolution. Moving from one space to the next in the timeline.
He doesn't wish to be reborn.
So...screaming, he's The original Doctor! He finds himself face to face with himself, but a much much earlier version...old like he is, and possibly the first one. The true original. Thirteen or is it Twelve is faced now, with number 1?
In addition, Moffat makes a point in this episode of stating that the Doctor can be male or female, that his society is beyond such binary concepts as gender. Gender isn't an issue. Bill retorts, "then why call yourselves Time Lords?" The show comments on itself and its own ingrained sexism, nationalism, and racism within the episode. And not always subtly.
It has done so all season long. Questioning how people identify, questioning indeed how it indentifies and labels itself.
Writing all this down, I realize how much I loved these two episodes, how deeply they resonated with me, I find myself repeating bits in my head.
Best two episodes of the season, and best that I've seen in the last two or three years. Also an very good ending to Moffat's arc on the series. I will miss Moffat, since I've more or less enjoyed his writing in everything he's done. I think his next project is Dracula of all things.
Overall rating? A
[As an aside, the US got tired of waiting on the British and created their own personal female 007, with Atomic Blond. Charlize Theron plays the titular agent role, and James McAvoy the love interest/male squeeze we may not be able to trust. I may have to see that.]
no subject
Date: 2017-07-10 03:34 pm (UTC)Likewise.
*Hugs you*