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does it ever bother you that your life doesn't make any sense?
I have been so busy with Life Things that I almost forgot it was Doctor Who night! Luckily, I remedied that.
Less thinky squee out of the way first: THE TRAGEDY OF AUTON RORY. He's made of fucking heartbreak, and though you apparently need things of Vincent & the Doctor caliber to make me cry for reals, everything with him was funny and shattering and excellent. The Cyberhead attacking Amy was HORRIFIC, and probably takes some prize for Scariest Use of Cybermen to date. All the bits with River investigating Amy's house gave me good shivers of impending doom. And I adored the Doctor's speechifying inside Stonehenge to make all the other aliens go away -- it's epic at the time, and in retrospect it is made of delicious, tasty twisted irony.
Speaking of: when I heard a description of the Mysterious Monster in the Pandorica, my immediate thought was "...wow, that sounds like Ten. But of course they wouldn't really have the Doctor in there." HA HA LITTLE DID I KNOW. I am digging how in Ten's run there was this "The Doctor is worth the monsters" thing going on, and meanwhile I'm going "...are you sure? Sarah Jane is the only one who is still stable and happy, and Ten wasn't even her Doctor!!" Now that we have Eleven, a Doctor who I'd feel much safer going traveling with (not because the mortality rate is any lower; I think it's more that he's companion- rather than self-oriented) and the Doctor probably is worth the monsters, we have the monsters lock the Doctor up for being worse. Quite frankly part of me wishes that Tennant had stayed on another season if only because, while the emotional arc would have to be different, I'd get the weird visceral joy of seeing Ten locked the fuck up in a big magic prison box, which he deserves, really. That said, I'm loving this season, I'm head-over-heels for Eleven, and honestly after Amy's Choice it's still very satisfying, even if it's not Ten-inna-box. IT'S STILL THE DOCTOR LOCKED UP FOR DESTROYING MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE, and I am 110% for this.
I also got very excited when I heard that River's encounter with Eleven in the Weeping Angels episodes is after her encounter here; in practice I am mostly excited because it means that, while library supercomputers can off this woman, even exploding TARDISes can't, but in theory it meant I spent most of the episode going "Oooh, is this where she kills him?" I mean, obviously she doesn't really kill him, but she could certainly do something twisty and awful that gets her sent to prison so she can break out pre-Weeping Angels. (I am, I think, incredibly fortunate in that, despite being meh at best about River in s4, I've talked myself into adoring her. I imagine this finale would be deeply annoying if I didn't.)
I wouldn't necessarily assign Doctor Who that much logic, but while I am slowly collecting bits and bats that I dislike Moffat's writing for, the way he does the logic of time travel is not one of them. For instance, while the opening was a bit gimmicky in that it was all "lollerskates, let's revisit Relevant Previous Episodes!" I still adore Van Gogh's TARDIS-explosion painting, and likewise I now think it is Very Important that someone write River/Liz X. (IDK why Liz would still be alive, though? I guess she's just a hot immortal. Yay!) I am also rolling my eyes at the tackiness of writing 'hello sweetie' on a cliff-face billions of years ago (oh River, honey, why) but again I like the concept, just as I was easy for it in Time of Angels: you have to hop in time a lot to put all the pieces together, but they do then hang fairly well. I do wonder when River, Amy, and the Doctor are actually at Stonehenge, though: I don't think all the races that allied together have time travel, and I doubt some of them hate the Doctor that much in 300 AD. Who knows!
What else I don't know: how the hell they're getting out of that mess. Last I checked, the universe was exploding, River was at ground zero, the Doctor was locked up, and Rory had shot Amy point-blank. I have not looked up anyone else's wild theories yet, so I only have my own, and they are probably, as usual, quite wrong. (On the other hand, I know my mind doesn't work like Rusty's. I have not test-driven it against Moffat's yet!) I do know, though, about the weird either costuming blooper or deliberate error that is the scene in Flesh & Stone where the Doctor goes back to Amy in the forest, suddenly wearing a new and different jacket, gives her more affection than is usual yet, and tells her she needs to remember and must on her own. I also know about the either metaphorical or literal scene at the end of Eleventh Hour where young Amelia in the garden looks up after a night of waiting because she hears the TARDIS coming for her. Both of these things were already exciting to me, and made more exciting by the Doctor's line this episode: "Your house. It was too big, too many empty rooms. Does it ever bother you, Amy, that your life doesn't make any sense?" And this is wonderful, because it fits in with the other two things I mentioned, the not-making-sense things. A lot of this season has been about constructed realities (often realities constructed by Amy), about illusion, about noticing the things that are slightly off; about seeing through illusion, seeing/knowing/remembering things no one else can; time can be rewritten; if something can be remembered, it can come back.
And a quick look at casting spoilers tells me, to my incredible delight, that young Amelia is in the next episode. I don't know if I want some whole parallel reality, but I sure as hell wouldn't say no, and I find the notion of a six-year-old saving the universe incredibly appealing. Honestly I should probably just still be crossing my fingers that it'll make sense, but strangely, I have faith.
Of course there's also still the question of who the fuck is piloting the TARDIS, yelling ominously about silence, and making everything explode. But the only idea I have there is "Like in Amy's Choice, and like unexpectedly this episode, IT WAS THE DOCTOR ALL ALONG." I would be down with that, but I am unsure, and it's too soon to hope for the Master again. We shall see!
I forgot how much I sort of missed Doctor Who finales! Also, next week it'll be done for the year, which is awesome because once the season is finished I have license from myself to write SO MUCH FIC.
Less thinky squee out of the way first: THE TRAGEDY OF AUTON RORY. He's made of fucking heartbreak, and though you apparently need things of Vincent & the Doctor caliber to make me cry for reals, everything with him was funny and shattering and excellent. The Cyberhead attacking Amy was HORRIFIC, and probably takes some prize for Scariest Use of Cybermen to date. All the bits with River investigating Amy's house gave me good shivers of impending doom. And I adored the Doctor's speechifying inside Stonehenge to make all the other aliens go away -- it's epic at the time, and in retrospect it is made of delicious, tasty twisted irony.
Speaking of: when I heard a description of the Mysterious Monster in the Pandorica, my immediate thought was "...wow, that sounds like Ten. But of course they wouldn't really have the Doctor in there." HA HA LITTLE DID I KNOW. I am digging how in Ten's run there was this "The Doctor is worth the monsters" thing going on, and meanwhile I'm going "...are you sure? Sarah Jane is the only one who is still stable and happy, and Ten wasn't even her Doctor!!" Now that we have Eleven, a Doctor who I'd feel much safer going traveling with (not because the mortality rate is any lower; I think it's more that he's companion- rather than self-oriented) and the Doctor probably is worth the monsters, we have the monsters lock the Doctor up for being worse. Quite frankly part of me wishes that Tennant had stayed on another season if only because, while the emotional arc would have to be different, I'd get the weird visceral joy of seeing Ten locked the fuck up in a big magic prison box, which he deserves, really. That said, I'm loving this season, I'm head-over-heels for Eleven, and honestly after Amy's Choice it's still very satisfying, even if it's not Ten-inna-box. IT'S STILL THE DOCTOR LOCKED UP FOR DESTROYING MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE, and I am 110% for this.
I also got very excited when I heard that River's encounter with Eleven in the Weeping Angels episodes is after her encounter here; in practice I am mostly excited because it means that, while library supercomputers can off this woman, even exploding TARDISes can't, but in theory it meant I spent most of the episode going "Oooh, is this where she kills him?" I mean, obviously she doesn't really kill him, but she could certainly do something twisty and awful that gets her sent to prison so she can break out pre-Weeping Angels. (I am, I think, incredibly fortunate in that, despite being meh at best about River in s4, I've talked myself into adoring her. I imagine this finale would be deeply annoying if I didn't.)
I wouldn't necessarily assign Doctor Who that much logic, but while I am slowly collecting bits and bats that I dislike Moffat's writing for, the way he does the logic of time travel is not one of them. For instance, while the opening was a bit gimmicky in that it was all "lollerskates, let's revisit Relevant Previous Episodes!" I still adore Van Gogh's TARDIS-explosion painting, and likewise I now think it is Very Important that someone write River/Liz X. (IDK why Liz would still be alive, though? I guess she's just a hot immortal. Yay!) I am also rolling my eyes at the tackiness of writing 'hello sweetie' on a cliff-face billions of years ago (oh River, honey, why) but again I like the concept, just as I was easy for it in Time of Angels: you have to hop in time a lot to put all the pieces together, but they do then hang fairly well. I do wonder when River, Amy, and the Doctor are actually at Stonehenge, though: I don't think all the races that allied together have time travel, and I doubt some of them hate the Doctor that much in 300 AD. Who knows!
What else I don't know: how the hell they're getting out of that mess. Last I checked, the universe was exploding, River was at ground zero, the Doctor was locked up, and Rory had shot Amy point-blank. I have not looked up anyone else's wild theories yet, so I only have my own, and they are probably, as usual, quite wrong. (On the other hand, I know my mind doesn't work like Rusty's. I have not test-driven it against Moffat's yet!) I do know, though, about the weird either costuming blooper or deliberate error that is the scene in Flesh & Stone where the Doctor goes back to Amy in the forest, suddenly wearing a new and different jacket, gives her more affection than is usual yet, and tells her she needs to remember and must on her own. I also know about the either metaphorical or literal scene at the end of Eleventh Hour where young Amelia in the garden looks up after a night of waiting because she hears the TARDIS coming for her. Both of these things were already exciting to me, and made more exciting by the Doctor's line this episode: "Your house. It was too big, too many empty rooms. Does it ever bother you, Amy, that your life doesn't make any sense?" And this is wonderful, because it fits in with the other two things I mentioned, the not-making-sense things. A lot of this season has been about constructed realities (often realities constructed by Amy), about illusion, about noticing the things that are slightly off; about seeing through illusion, seeing/knowing/remembering things no one else can; time can be rewritten; if something can be remembered, it can come back.
And a quick look at casting spoilers tells me, to my incredible delight, that young Amelia is in the next episode. I don't know if I want some whole parallel reality, but I sure as hell wouldn't say no, and I find the notion of a six-year-old saving the universe incredibly appealing. Honestly I should probably just still be crossing my fingers that it'll make sense, but strangely, I have faith.
Of course there's also still the question of who the fuck is piloting the TARDIS, yelling ominously about silence, and making everything explode. But the only idea I have there is "Like in Amy's Choice, and like unexpectedly this episode, IT WAS THE DOCTOR ALL ALONG." I would be down with that, but I am unsure, and it's too soon to hope for the Master again. We shall see!
I forgot how much I sort of missed Doctor Who finales! Also, next week it'll be done for the year, which is awesome because once the season is finished I have license from myself to write SO MUCH FIC.
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Hmm. Don't forget she was in prison at the beginning of this episode, so presumably she'd already killed the best man she knew at that point (which tends to suggest that it wasn't the Doctor). In the Weeping Angels eps, she hadn't escaped, I thought, but was there under licence. The Priests With Guns were her parole officers...
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Crack Ending Time...
And the thing is, the Master has messed with realities constructed by mortals before, incorporating concepts and errors that help him. (Logopolis, for example.)
Think about the boundless imagination of a six-year-old reshaping reality.
And then think about the Master suggesting to her that this new reality never had a Time War. And that Gallifrey--the classic Who version with the stuffy Time Lords, not the crazy ones--exists.
Automatically, the war that devastated all time and space? Never happened. Which means that all the monsters--the Cybermen, the Sontarans, the Weeping Angels and especially the Daleks--are fine. Not destroyed or nearly destroyed at all. But...trade-off. Because Gallifrey is fine.
And the Doctor and the Council of Time Lords would owe the Master (and Amelia) big time. Because hey, lives were saved, planets were saved, and our people still exist. Oh, yes, there was a little reset button...but you do realize, Doctor, that you can't turn time back to the way things were before wee Amelia hit that button? Because the universe was tearing itself apart.
And as the Doctor stares in horror, realizing how much has been unraveled and rewoven by one child and a very devious old enemy, the Master would simply smile. Because he'd have had Amelia create a universe in which he could thrive--possibly without the drums in his head, even.
He'd have won.
And the Doctor couldn't do a damned thing without destroying everything and everyone. (And Moffat and his crew would effectively have a new universe to play with while still allowing the old one to exist.)
This is undoubtedly not going to happen, but I like this theory.
Re: Crack Ending Time...
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I hope they don't push a reset button. There's speculation that there's been two Doctors running around somehow, and of course now I have to rewatch the entire season to see if I can find hints of that like others did.
Question: how can young Matt Smith act so old and so knowing? I take my hat off to him.
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I have no idea how Matt Smith can pull off that sort of age and knowledge, but my god, give the boy an acting award. <3
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That's a very good point! I guess, theoretically, it could be any time, since the Romans aren't real. I... don't know! Hmm. Now you have me thinking about that!
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But anyway, [Matt Smith voice] cool. There are some things here I've been thinking of, and some I haven't - notably the costume/affect shift in "Flesh and Stone." Which, since you mention it, I am 100% positive is *not* a blooper. I'm sure it's all down to Amelia - which solves the problem of what everyone is doing on Salisbury Plain in 103 A.D., namely there's some sense in which nothing happening there is real. Or it's all real, like her real/imaginary friend, the Raggedy Doctor.
Although how that accounts for/impacts River and the TARDIS is huge question. And over all, I don't fucking know - I just know it comes down to Amelia and that time paradoxes are, at long last, right at the center of the whole thing, yay.
Thanks!