The full End of Time reaction

[tardis_stowaway]

I've decided that my overall opinion on EoT2 was that it was pretty good overall with isolated moments of greatness, but there were several important (and assorted minor) things that I really disliked.   If I'd been writing Ten's finale, it would have had a vastly different focus than what we saw onscreen.  Alas, I am not an egotistical but (usually) talented gay Welshman, so all I can do is ramble about it.  For my convenience, I'm going to discuss gripes first, then finish with the positives.  Some parts of this are copied verbatim from comments I've already made elsewhere.

**Gripes**

My single biggest problem with The End of Time was the treatment of Donna.  I hate how disempowered she was in this episode.  Not only does she not get her memories back, she also doesn't get to do a thing to help save the world.  She gets married off to some guy we don't know; he seemed decent enough from the few seconds we saw of him, but I dislike the use of marriage as shorthand for a happy, normal life. It's not that I object to Donna finding romance (quite the opposite), but  I wish that in addition to that they'd told us about Donna getting a fulfilling job (preferably saving the world), traveling to cool places, or maybe writing a book about her crazy dreams.  Where was the Donna who spent evenings gazing up at the stars with her grandad, the one who becomes most fantastic when things are at their worst?  As I said in a comment to  isiscaughey , implying that marriage and money are all she will need for happiness is just insulting.  Watching Doctor Who from a feminist perspective has its ups and downs, but this is definitely one of the single worst downs of the RTD years. 

Yes, RTD had written himself into a bit of a corner regarding Donna, but there were plenty of ways to give her a more empowering ending without killing her off or requiring her to be on the upcoming season.  My cracky personal favorite would be to invent some technobabble about Donna having absorbed regenerative capacity during the metacrisis and have her regenerate. No more Catherine Tate, alas, but long live Donna! She could also have snapped into full DoctorDonna state with a few minutes before brain burnout and used the time to come up with a cure for herself, and then decided that she couldn't quite trust the Doctor in the same way after he took her memories and thus didn't want to travel with him. She could either have returned to her ordinary life, joined Gwen's Torchwood, or set off on her own wacky space adventures, possibly with Captain Jack. Hell, I would have settled for her going into DoctorDonna brain-burning mode in the presence of the Doctor and asking him to take the memories away again because she has a good life and people who need her to live. Over half of my objection to the JE mindwipe was the way the Doctor imposed the decision to live as less than she was without her consent, and making the choice to live a mundane life Donna's chosen way out of a horrible situation would have been better.

Ten further cemented his place as a little less close to my heart than Nine by taking his pending regeneration so poorly.  Yes, the circumstances were vastly different, but I can't help contrasting Ten's petulant "I don't want to go" with the grace, humor, and dignity of "You were fantastic.  And you know what?  So was I." Seriously, dude, rage against the dying of the light all you want when there is still a chance of preventing that death or when you're trying to delay it long enough to make some goodbyes, but at the moment the light is pretty much out and you've done all you can, stop the hell with the whining.  You get to regenerate; most of us don't have even that. 

On the subject of ways Ten is less than heroic sometimes, I do wish instead of this whole End of Time mess the show had further explored Ten's break in Waters of Mars and pushed the boundaries a little further for how low the Doctor could slide while he thinks he's taking the high road.  He would have needed to redeem himself before regenerating, of course, but I think a little bit more dark!Doctor would have been fascinating.

Why does Gallifrey look more like a small sun than a planet?

I've been thinking further about the Mickey/Martha.  I still don't like it.  RTD seems to have decided that he needed to marry off everybody whether the marriages made sense or not, like the end of a Shakespearean comedy.  I liked the little bit we saw of Tom, and I dislike the way it makes Martha look so arbitrary and changeable in her affections.  Also, I feel somewhat uncomfortable about how the out of the blue marriage happened to throw together the major recurring black characters.   I don't know if I'd go so far as to call Race Fail, since I do think these two characters would get along splendidly so it's not completely arbitrary, but it's definitely Race Shoulda Thought That Through More Carefully. 

Nooooooo, they blew up the TARDIS interior!  I'd heard that Moffat was having the TARDIS redesigned, but I'd been holding my hands over my ears and hoping that information was false.   RIP, coral struts.  I will miss you.

**Praise**

I utterly adored the interactions between Wilf and the Doctor.  The exchange on the spaceship where the Doctor told Wilf that he wished Wilf was his dad was so sweet and so sad. Normally I think the company of young people is good for the Doctor to help him see things through fresh eyes (and cope with the running), but at the end of his life the understanding of another old man was just what he needed.  Plus, Wilf still has an innocent joy.  I wanted to give him a huge hug when he got all excited about being an astronaut.   Also, Wilf shot lasers at missiles!  Frickin' awesome.  (Meanwhile, Wilf's knocking may be the first time a simple sound effect has ever brought me so close to tears.)

The scene where the Doctor has to choose between shooting the Master and shooting Rassilon (!) and instead shoots the machinery was wonderful, and it spoke to one of the things I love best about Doctor Who.  I love that when faced with the choice of violence, more violence, or letting the bad guys win, he makes another option. 

On a similar note, Rusty managed some political commentary that was much more subtle than his usual.  Showing how Time Lord society changed and twisted under endless war (even a war where they started off in the right) definitely has meaning for our world today, but for once the point was not pounded in with a sledgehammer. (A pleasant change from the random Obama obsession in EoT1...seriously, show, stay in your fictional universe and keep your Master away from my president.) 

The Master was much better in this episode than EoT1.  The slashers are having a field day, of course.  The Doctor continues to shelter impossible hopes of redeeming the Master and taking him along as a travel buddy, and the Master continues to take the crazy pills.  However, in the end the Master decided that he hated the Doctor a little less than he hated the rest of the Time Lords.   Perhaps it occurred to him that if it weren't for the maddening drumming imposed him by the other Time Lords, all the things the Doctor said about how good he could have been might have been true.  The Master did not turn to the side of good; he schemed and sought power and control right until the end, and he always acted out of self-interest.  Yet, he asked the Doctor to move out of the way when he could have zapped him along with the other Time Lords.  It was an act of solidarity, maybe even compassion.  It cost the Master nothing, but it didn't gain him anything either.  I loved the delicate balance that confrontation with the Doctor and the Time Lords struck, avoiding any sudden  good!Master that would have felt false but showing the chance of the Master's future redemption change from "impossible" to "exceedingly unlikely." 

"Worst.  Rescue. Ever."  This was cheesy, but I laughed my head off anyway.  Also, bondage chair Doctor will now be fodder for many, many icons for sketchy fangirls.  The reveal of the cactus person under the guard helmet was great.

The Doctor is now so badass that he goes skydiving without a parachute!  

Look,  the Risen Mitten OF RASSILON!  The interplanetary diamond throw OF RASSILON!  The flying spittle OF RASSILON!  For once, the label is real and not just a joke.  Still funny, though. 

While I actively disliked the codas for Donna, Mickey, and Martha and wished for much more from Jack's, I was very happy with the goodbyes to Rose and to Joan's granddaughter.  While a small part of me wished we'd had a goodbye from present tense Pete's World Rose, which would have allowed for a possible snog, in general I liked the sweetness and sense of closure in sending past Rose onward to her future.   Plus, by keeping Rose and TenII's fate unknown, all the excellent fics about the two of them remain un-Jossed. 

While The End of Time is not quite the farewell to Ten and the RTD -era companions that I wanted, it did succeed admirably in accomplishing its other crucial goal of making me excited about the future.  Yes, I'm deeply sad to wave goodbye to Tennant, and truthfully even more sad that we are likely saying goodbye to the humans who accompanied him, but I'm eager to see what Matt Smith will bring.  His few moments seemed a bit excessively Ten-like, but they sure were fun.  I am willing to be hopeful that his personality will become more distinct with time.  Plus, I squeed about his concern over being a girl.  Not only was Matt's expression priceless, but the fact that he was worried implied that a sex-change regeneration is possible.  Personally, I would love to see a female Doctor some day.  For now, though, we've got girly-haired, many-fingered, happily crashing Eleven, and that's brilliant.  Molto bene!  Fantastic, even. 

Finally, I am so very happy that we avoided some of the worst perils:

No dead Donna!

No dead Wilf!

NO GIANT RESET BUTTON!

For those things, I am profoundly grateful.

As much as I rant, I am really immensely thankful for what David Tennant and Russel T. Davies have done to bring to life this show that I love so much.  So long, y'all, and thanks for all the fish quality television.

Comments

[rengeek.livejournal.com]

I didn't like the Mickey/Martha pairing, not just for the racial pairing, but also because it reinforced Martha's sad role of Consolation Rose Prize. Mickey couldn't get Rose, so he'll settle for Martha. Really, can't Martha find a guy that isn't Ms. Tyler's leavings? That was my big gripe with it. Poor Martha. Rusty doesn't like you.

I do love Eleven's little number. I read that that was completely scripted by Moff, so we get a little sneak preview as to what we're in store for. Looking good so far!

[tardis-stowaway.livejournal.com]

Martha does keep getting the short end of the stick from RTD, doesn't she? Well, luckily present day Mickey is much more awesome than the Mickey who Rose abandoned, so I don't feel too bad for her. Also, Martha gets to keep her memories!

[mysticalchild_isis]

It was an act of solidarity, maybe even compassion. It cost the Master nothing, but it didn't gain him anything either.

Well said. I liked that this felt a lot more like the Master of old, and echoed some of the older interactions.

I was very happy with the goodbyes to Rose and to Joan's granddaughter.

::nods:: Agreed.

Finally, I am so very happy that we avoided some of the worst perils

SO MUCH YES.