"mixed feelings" doesn't begin to cover it
Aug. 3rd, 2008 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tardis_stowawayWatching on the US schedule, I've finally seen "Journey's End." I'm still trying to make sense of my feelings. The episode was so packed with the wonderful and the terrible.
--Donna's ending was NOT okay. I'm furious at the writers for doing that to her. I would have loved another season with Donna (assuming we couldn't have Rose, or best yet both of them), but if she had to go they could have written her off in any number of less bleak ways. Within the show, I'm furious at the Doctor. First, instead of dropping all those people off he should have made saving Donna his first priority. With that extra time (and the extra minds on board) maybe he could have found a way to save her life and her memories, even if she couldn't keep the Time Lord mind. If there really were no choices other than total amnesia or death, he should have offered her a choice, and he should have listened to it.
When Donna was protesting, I don't believe that it was just directed at the cruel fate that brought her to that point. She had the Doctor's mental powers, so she knew what the Doctor was planning at what would happen if she didn't. She chose to let herself die rather than to live on as she had been before meeting the Doctor. The Doctor wiped her mind without her consent. The Doctor acted like family members of people on life support who selfishly go against living wills and try to force their loved ones to be kept alive as vegetables. Loving a person and wanting them to be alive does not make it OK to force someone to live in a condition they don't want to endure. Of course, the life Donna went back to was a long way from being a vegetable, but the fact remains that she made a choice. She didn't want to be the shallow, unaware, insecure, slightly selfish person that we met in Runaway Bride. All the potential to be fantastic is still within her, but the fact is that plenty of people have wonderful potential that is never realized. Donna became extraordinary in Turn Left's parallel world too, but she had Rose following her around and that was a world where everyone was in extreme circumstances that perhaps brought out their true selves. In this universe, she might live out the rest of her days as an office drone special only for the way she seems to consistently miss the more exciting world events.
As if that weren't bad enough, she'll die anyway if she remembers. The fact that she was able to see the Doctor with no apparent danger implies that the mindwipe is fairly robust against accidental reminders, but the Doctor's warning to her family made it clear that it's possible for her to remember. Her family might know to keep her safe from memory cues, but those friends she was talking to on the phone are going to want to know where she's been. They're going to ask her about her obsession with the paranormal that she had while looking for the Doctor in Partners in Crime. Sooner or later an alien invasion might come along that she actually notices. The Doctor might even end up on the news, as he does sometimes. Did the Doctor remember to tell Jack, Sarah Jane, & co. never to call up Donna? How big of a reminder would it take? This mindwipe solution is both cruel and too fragile.
--Rose and 10.5's ending leaves me both happy and unsettled. As a reader and writer of Alt!Doctor fic, I believe that Rose can be happy with another version of the Doctor. She feels slighted and betrayed now, but I think that she will come to accept 10.5 as the Doctor just as she learned to accept 10. The hurt as she watched the TARDIS leave brought a lump to my throat, but I think she's on trajectory to be very happy sometime down the line, and I'm ever so glad for her. If we can't have Rose as our companion for a couple more seasons, this is as good an ending for her as we could reasonably expect. What bothers me is how the ending was reached and what it will mean for the Doctors.
The Doctor took away her choice. (It's also unclear to me whether the half-human Doctor had any say in the matter...I need to watch it again.) This assumption that he always knows best and has the right to choose for others is the personality trait that bothers me most about the Doctor in general and Ten in particular. It was particularly cowardly and low to sneak off while she was occupied kissing 10.5. Considering what 10.5 had just (presumably) told her, there was a very real possibility that Rose would willingly if sorrowfully let him leave, but the stealth exit meant that he left without saying goodbye.
I'm bothered by why the Doctor felt the need to leave Rose and his doppelganger in the other universe. He condemned 10.5 for making the terrible but necessary decision that he made in the not so distant past...a less terrible decision, actually, because this time the Daleks were destroyed without taking a good planet down in the process. He rejected himself in a way that I don't regard as healthy. Also, there could be ways of making sure 10.5 was looked after without leaving him and Rose on a sealed off on a parallel world. I'm sure Jack would have been quite willing to take in the progeny of the hand he was so fond of...;) This decision was bad for 10.5, disrespectful of Rose, and devastating to him. Why oh why does the Doctor feel the need to always take the course that will leave him alone and unhappy?
I worry also about 10.5. He is the Doctor in mind and self-image, but now he has to cope with being partially of a species he clearly considered himself superior to. He's got a much shorter lifespan now, and mortality is troubling enough to those of us raised to expect it. He's got Rose, but no TARDIS and thus nothing left of Gallifrey. I see angst in his future at a minimum. If the metacrisis was so deadly to Donna, is it really going to be stable over the long term in the half-human Doctor?
Speaking of 10.5, I thought it unnecessarily cruel to the viewers to not make his whisper to Rose audible. We think we know what he said, and we've got the kiss to back it up, but Rose wasn't the only one who deserved to actually hear those words. On a similar note, I don't buy this idea that the original Doctor is incapable of saying "I love you." Would it be emotionally hard to lay himself out in the open like that, to admit to himself and others that he feels so strongly about someone who will wither and die before him? Of course. But it's not easy for anybody. Not saying the words doesn't make it any easier for him to do without her, since he's clearly admitted to himself long ago how he feels. Saying the words wouldn't mean he had to suddenly put Rose ahead of the existence of the universe. Plenty of people have loved someone and still left them out of necessity. Here's how the scene in question would have gone if I got to rewrite just this part and keep the same ending:
ROSE: What was the last thing you said to me?
ORIGINAL DOCTOR: Rose Tyler, I...
(He hesitates. Rose looks at him expectantly.)
ORIGINAL DOCTOR: I...
(He takes a deep breath. He looks resolved to say it this time.)
ORIGINAL DOCTOR: I lo...
(You can see his mouth start to form what looks like the word "love," but the half-human Doctor cuts in, louder and surer.)
HALF-HUMAN DOCTOR: I love you. I love you so very much.
(Rose turns to the newer Doctor and is astonished by the naked emotion on his face. She leans in to kiss him. The original Doctor and Donna glance at each other and move right to the door of the TARDIS but don't go inside. When Rose is finished kissing she turns around and sees them.)
ORIGINAL DOCTOR: Remember, Rose. He and I think alike.
(He and Rose hold eye contact for a loud moment. At last, Rose nods. The TARDIS rumbles.)
ROSE: (voice rough) Universe is collapsing. You should probably do something about that.
ORIGINAL DOCTOR: Thank you, Rose. For everything. Goodbye.
(Rose nods again. She's crying now, unable to speak. The original Doctor touches Donna on the shoulder and she goes into the TARDIS. He follows. The half-human Doctor leans over and whispers something in Rose's ear. She sprints towards the TARDIS, causing the Doctor to hesitate with the door half-closed. Rose arrives at the TARDIS and instantly grabs the original Doctor by the lapels and kisses him. Their kiss is passionate, hungry, and not very long at all.)
ROSE: Goodbye, Doctor.
(She backs away from the TARDIS until she is standing beside the half-human Doctor. He takes her hand. They watch as the TARDIS fades away.)
But enough of that. Here's some other comments about the episode:
--I loved, loved, LOVED the moment when everybody was flying the TARDIS together. It was an "everybody lives" moment of triumph and wholeness that does a lot to counterbalance some of my aforementioned negative feelings.
--was that a hint that we're going to have Mickey and Martha on Torchwood? Huzzah! I'm especially excited about Mickey, who will be hilarious to watch in the omnisexual office of Torchwood. (Speaking of Mickey and sexuality, when Mickey announced that there was nothing in the parallel world for him, I was sad that the relationship he had with Jake in my mind must have gone sour.)
--The Daleks spinning helplessly and being shoved around were absolutely hilarious. I'm not all that enthusiastic about Daleks as villains, but that scene made their presence 110% worthwhile. I also laughed at the Daleks speaking German.
--Unexpected naked Doctor!!! Hark, was that thousands of fangirls squeeing in unison that I heard? But, as I saw pointed out elsewhere, why did Jack's clothes not incinerate? No fair!
--I didn't post a reaction to The Stolen Earth, so let me say here that Harriet Jones completely and utterly rocks!!! I was so glad to see her brought back in an unequivocally heroic role, even if they did kill her. :'( But what is this Mr. Copper Foundation she mentioned? Foreshadowing sensors are flashing!
--After the wonderful, intense onslaught of Bad Wolf at the end of Turn Left, they pretty much totally dropped the Bad Wolf idea. Boo! How did all those Bad Wolf mentions get there? Were they put down by the original Bad Wolf Rose back in PotW seeing into the future? Do the words Bad Wolf now follow Rose around like Sir Robin's minstrels? Was it all the TARDIS's doing somehow?
--Jackie with the ginormous gun FTW! Also, I was astonished to realize that I liked her outfit. However, in an episode that was a bit too packed with characters, she was perhaps the one who could have been left out the most easily.
--The Doctor and Rose noticing Gwen's resemblance to Gwyneth was absolutely adorable and a nice bonus for fans who've been watching since the beginning.
--Donna's instant fixation on Jack was a treat to watch. I've thought all season that those two would make a great if slightly cracktastic pairing.
--I loved the montage of people who have died for the Doctor. JABE!
--Catherine Tate did an amazing acting job. Give that woman an award! Then write her back into the show for another few years.
--My feelings were somewhat negatively skewed by the fact that my mostly successful attempt to avoid major spoilers without totally dropping out of fandom failed less than 24 hours before I saw that episode. A serious spoiler of Rose's ending popped up unwarned in a place I had no reason to expect a spoiler. Boo!
--Hey! Why was there so little interaction between Jack and Rose?
--Rose and Martha fangirling each other warmed my heart.
--The Doctor=God imagery is still around, but thankfully slightly more subtle than Tinkerbell Jesus in LotTL. The Doctor was split into three aspects: the Father (original Doctor), Son (the half human new Doctor) and Holy Spirit (often considered the feminine aspect of the Trinity, this goes to Donna). Oh, RTD. You're so predictable sometimes.
--Dalek Caan was prophesying that one of the "children of time" would die. Did I miss something? Donna had a horrible ending, but she didn't die, at least not physically. Rose is back in the parallel world, which was equated with death in Doomsday, but they didn't reinforce that connection here. Jack died a few times, but he doesn't stay that way. Is this something else for the future? A false prophecy? Did somebody die and I got so wrapped up in the other storylines that I've forgotten already?
--Rose had frustratingly little to do other than be the Doctor's romantic interest in this episode. I know they big world-saving had to go to Donna, this season's companion, but I wish she'd had some sort of clever idea or provided more comfort to the Doctor when Davros was accusing him of corrupting people or something. However, Donna's day-saving was impressive enough that I'm not as angry about this as I would be otherwise.
Having now made this entry so long that nobody is still reading, it's time to call it a night.
--Donna's ending was NOT okay. I'm furious at the writers for doing that to her. I would have loved another season with Donna (assuming we couldn't have Rose, or best yet both of them), but if she had to go they could have written her off in any number of less bleak ways. Within the show, I'm furious at the Doctor. First, instead of dropping all those people off he should have made saving Donna his first priority. With that extra time (and the extra minds on board) maybe he could have found a way to save her life and her memories, even if she couldn't keep the Time Lord mind. If there really were no choices other than total amnesia or death, he should have offered her a choice, and he should have listened to it.
When Donna was protesting, I don't believe that it was just directed at the cruel fate that brought her to that point. She had the Doctor's mental powers, so she knew what the Doctor was planning at what would happen if she didn't. She chose to let herself die rather than to live on as she had been before meeting the Doctor. The Doctor wiped her mind without her consent. The Doctor acted like family members of people on life support who selfishly go against living wills and try to force their loved ones to be kept alive as vegetables. Loving a person and wanting them to be alive does not make it OK to force someone to live in a condition they don't want to endure. Of course, the life Donna went back to was a long way from being a vegetable, but the fact remains that she made a choice. She didn't want to be the shallow, unaware, insecure, slightly selfish person that we met in Runaway Bride. All the potential to be fantastic is still within her, but the fact is that plenty of people have wonderful potential that is never realized. Donna became extraordinary in Turn Left's parallel world too, but she had Rose following her around and that was a world where everyone was in extreme circumstances that perhaps brought out their true selves. In this universe, she might live out the rest of her days as an office drone special only for the way she seems to consistently miss the more exciting world events.
As if that weren't bad enough, she'll die anyway if she remembers. The fact that she was able to see the Doctor with no apparent danger implies that the mindwipe is fairly robust against accidental reminders, but the Doctor's warning to her family made it clear that it's possible for her to remember. Her family might know to keep her safe from memory cues, but those friends she was talking to on the phone are going to want to know where she's been. They're going to ask her about her obsession with the paranormal that she had while looking for the Doctor in Partners in Crime. Sooner or later an alien invasion might come along that she actually notices. The Doctor might even end up on the news, as he does sometimes. Did the Doctor remember to tell Jack, Sarah Jane, & co. never to call up Donna? How big of a reminder would it take? This mindwipe solution is both cruel and too fragile.
--Rose and 10.5's ending leaves me both happy and unsettled. As a reader and writer of Alt!Doctor fic, I believe that Rose can be happy with another version of the Doctor. She feels slighted and betrayed now, but I think that she will come to accept 10.5 as the Doctor just as she learned to accept 10. The hurt as she watched the TARDIS leave brought a lump to my throat, but I think she's on trajectory to be very happy sometime down the line, and I'm ever so glad for her. If we can't have Rose as our companion for a couple more seasons, this is as good an ending for her as we could reasonably expect. What bothers me is how the ending was reached and what it will mean for the Doctors.
The Doctor took away her choice. (It's also unclear to me whether the half-human Doctor had any say in the matter...I need to watch it again.) This assumption that he always knows best and has the right to choose for others is the personality trait that bothers me most about the Doctor in general and Ten in particular. It was particularly cowardly and low to sneak off while she was occupied kissing 10.5. Considering what 10.5 had just (presumably) told her, there was a very real possibility that Rose would willingly if sorrowfully let him leave, but the stealth exit meant that he left without saying goodbye.
I'm bothered by why the Doctor felt the need to leave Rose and his doppelganger in the other universe. He condemned 10.5 for making the terrible but necessary decision that he made in the not so distant past...a less terrible decision, actually, because this time the Daleks were destroyed without taking a good planet down in the process. He rejected himself in a way that I don't regard as healthy. Also, there could be ways of making sure 10.5 was looked after without leaving him and Rose on a sealed off on a parallel world. I'm sure Jack would have been quite willing to take in the progeny of the hand he was so fond of...;) This decision was bad for 10.5, disrespectful of Rose, and devastating to him. Why oh why does the Doctor feel the need to always take the course that will leave him alone and unhappy?
I worry also about 10.5. He is the Doctor in mind and self-image, but now he has to cope with being partially of a species he clearly considered himself superior to. He's got a much shorter lifespan now, and mortality is troubling enough to those of us raised to expect it. He's got Rose, but no TARDIS and thus nothing left of Gallifrey. I see angst in his future at a minimum. If the metacrisis was so deadly to Donna, is it really going to be stable over the long term in the half-human Doctor?
Speaking of 10.5, I thought it unnecessarily cruel to the viewers to not make his whisper to Rose audible. We think we know what he said, and we've got the kiss to back it up, but Rose wasn't the only one who deserved to actually hear those words. On a similar note, I don't buy this idea that the original Doctor is incapable of saying "I love you." Would it be emotionally hard to lay himself out in the open like that, to admit to himself and others that he feels so strongly about someone who will wither and die before him? Of course. But it's not easy for anybody. Not saying the words doesn't make it any easier for him to do without her, since he's clearly admitted to himself long ago how he feels. Saying the words wouldn't mean he had to suddenly put Rose ahead of the existence of the universe. Plenty of people have loved someone and still left them out of necessity. Here's how the scene in question would have gone if I got to rewrite just this part and keep the same ending:
ROSE: What was the last thing you said to me?
ORIGINAL DOCTOR: Rose Tyler, I...
(He hesitates. Rose looks at him expectantly.)
ORIGINAL DOCTOR: I...
(He takes a deep breath. He looks resolved to say it this time.)
ORIGINAL DOCTOR: I lo...
(You can see his mouth start to form what looks like the word "love," but the half-human Doctor cuts in, louder and surer.)
HALF-HUMAN DOCTOR: I love you. I love you so very much.
(Rose turns to the newer Doctor and is astonished by the naked emotion on his face. She leans in to kiss him. The original Doctor and Donna glance at each other and move right to the door of the TARDIS but don't go inside. When Rose is finished kissing she turns around and sees them.)
ORIGINAL DOCTOR: Remember, Rose. He and I think alike.
(He and Rose hold eye contact for a loud moment. At last, Rose nods. The TARDIS rumbles.)
ROSE: (voice rough) Universe is collapsing. You should probably do something about that.
ORIGINAL DOCTOR: Thank you, Rose. For everything. Goodbye.
(Rose nods again. She's crying now, unable to speak. The original Doctor touches Donna on the shoulder and she goes into the TARDIS. He follows. The half-human Doctor leans over and whispers something in Rose's ear. She sprints towards the TARDIS, causing the Doctor to hesitate with the door half-closed. Rose arrives at the TARDIS and instantly grabs the original Doctor by the lapels and kisses him. Their kiss is passionate, hungry, and not very long at all.)
ROSE: Goodbye, Doctor.
(She backs away from the TARDIS until she is standing beside the half-human Doctor. He takes her hand. They watch as the TARDIS fades away.)
But enough of that. Here's some other comments about the episode:
--I loved, loved, LOVED the moment when everybody was flying the TARDIS together. It was an "everybody lives" moment of triumph and wholeness that does a lot to counterbalance some of my aforementioned negative feelings.
--was that a hint that we're going to have Mickey and Martha on Torchwood? Huzzah! I'm especially excited about Mickey, who will be hilarious to watch in the omnisexual office of Torchwood. (Speaking of Mickey and sexuality, when Mickey announced that there was nothing in the parallel world for him, I was sad that the relationship he had with Jake in my mind must have gone sour.)
--The Daleks spinning helplessly and being shoved around were absolutely hilarious. I'm not all that enthusiastic about Daleks as villains, but that scene made their presence 110% worthwhile. I also laughed at the Daleks speaking German.
--Unexpected naked Doctor!!! Hark, was that thousands of fangirls squeeing in unison that I heard? But, as I saw pointed out elsewhere, why did Jack's clothes not incinerate? No fair!
--I didn't post a reaction to The Stolen Earth, so let me say here that Harriet Jones completely and utterly rocks!!! I was so glad to see her brought back in an unequivocally heroic role, even if they did kill her. :'( But what is this Mr. Copper Foundation she mentioned? Foreshadowing sensors are flashing!
--After the wonderful, intense onslaught of Bad Wolf at the end of Turn Left, they pretty much totally dropped the Bad Wolf idea. Boo! How did all those Bad Wolf mentions get there? Were they put down by the original Bad Wolf Rose back in PotW seeing into the future? Do the words Bad Wolf now follow Rose around like Sir Robin's minstrels? Was it all the TARDIS's doing somehow?
--Jackie with the ginormous gun FTW! Also, I was astonished to realize that I liked her outfit. However, in an episode that was a bit too packed with characters, she was perhaps the one who could have been left out the most easily.
--The Doctor and Rose noticing Gwen's resemblance to Gwyneth was absolutely adorable and a nice bonus for fans who've been watching since the beginning.
--Donna's instant fixation on Jack was a treat to watch. I've thought all season that those two would make a great if slightly cracktastic pairing.
--I loved the montage of people who have died for the Doctor. JABE!
--Catherine Tate did an amazing acting job. Give that woman an award! Then write her back into the show for another few years.
--My feelings were somewhat negatively skewed by the fact that my mostly successful attempt to avoid major spoilers without totally dropping out of fandom failed less than 24 hours before I saw that episode. A serious spoiler of Rose's ending popped up unwarned in a place I had no reason to expect a spoiler. Boo!
--Hey! Why was there so little interaction between Jack and Rose?
--Rose and Martha fangirling each other warmed my heart.
--The Doctor=God imagery is still around, but thankfully slightly more subtle than Tinkerbell Jesus in LotTL. The Doctor was split into three aspects: the Father (original Doctor), Son (the half human new Doctor) and Holy Spirit (often considered the feminine aspect of the Trinity, this goes to Donna). Oh, RTD. You're so predictable sometimes.
--Dalek Caan was prophesying that one of the "children of time" would die. Did I miss something? Donna had a horrible ending, but she didn't die, at least not physically. Rose is back in the parallel world, which was equated with death in Doomsday, but they didn't reinforce that connection here. Jack died a few times, but he doesn't stay that way. Is this something else for the future? A false prophecy? Did somebody die and I got so wrapped up in the other storylines that I've forgotten already?
--Rose had frustratingly little to do other than be the Doctor's romantic interest in this episode. I know they big world-saving had to go to Donna, this season's companion, but I wish she'd had some sort of clever idea or provided more comfort to the Doctor when Davros was accusing him of corrupting people or something. However, Donna's day-saving was impressive enough that I'm not as angry about this as I would be otherwise.
Having now made this entry so long that nobody is still reading, it's time to call it a night.
