The Night of the Doctor

[bagheera_san]

Third post this week! Woohoo :D Brought on by the DW minisode "The Night of the Doctor".

I have extremely ambivalent feelings about this - about 40% YAY 60%NAY

Comments

[asthenie_vd]

I feel your anger. The writing in this was so cheap! Why, if they really did not want the eighth Doctor as the Time War Doctor, why did they not simply let him die failing to save that women, and have the next Doctor simply have a more aggressive personality who decides to become a warrior, after realising the way he tried to ignore the Time War before didn't help anyone or achieve anything? Without any magic potions? This way they still have the eighth Doctor be the one with the emotional baggage for taking the decision (although we see far to little about how he actually came to that point), but we don't get to see any of that exploited, because immediately after the fact we have the Hurt!Doctor as a warrior, who did not have to make a moral choice, but simply is that way, and is, in addition, set apart from his previous and future incarnations by the potion. Having the Time War Doctor be the one who actually had an made a choice would be so much more powerful

[bagheera_san]

I think Moffat just doesn't believe in free will. At least not very much - his entire work is based on fate, retcons and magic potions dictating what people will do.

Yeah, it would have been more powerful if Eight had stayed on the ship because Cass refuses to go with him, and then we see him crawl out of the wreckage and regenerate and when he gets up he announces that he's now going to join the war. Or maybe if the Sisterhood offers him the magical warrior beverage and he declines because he can make this choice on his own, thank you very much, and if he'll go down that road, he'll take full responsibility for it.

[argendriel]

Damn, I don't even like Doctor Who but I need to watch it for Paul McGann. I don't know - is he only in it for that time span of 6 minutes and can I just turn it off after that? The rest doesn't sound worth watching anyway.

[bagheera_san]

The whole thing is only 6 minutes long and he is in all of that, so if you care nothing whatsoever about Who, it's worth watching!

[argendriel]

Ah! Great! Thanks~

[bagheera_san]

And he's in the entire TV movie from 1996 - but I assume you know that already.

[crowfrost]

(Hello there! Just a random lurker who stumbled upon your LJ after reading a fanfic of yours.)

I completely agree with you. I am aware that this was a mini-episode, but I feel as if the subject matter shouldn't have been crammed into a mere six minute clip.

Becoming a more aggressive personality/incarnation with the help of a concoction? Silly. Deciding within a couple minutes that you want to become involved in a conflict when you wanted absolutely nothing to do with the Time War for the longest time, all because of a woman's death? Ridiculous and unbelievable.

Moffat keeps implying that the order of regenerations will not change (Nine is actually the Tenth, Ten is actually the Eleventh Doctor, etc.) but how else could this possibly be explained? We just saw Eight regenerate into the Hurt Doctor and I don't think it is another metacrisis situation...so...I think I am just going to see how the anniversary episode turns out before placing judgment on the entire unacknowledged Doctor concept.

<3 However, I am so happy to see Paul

[bagheera_san]

Yay for delurking! :)

I think if this had been a full-length episode I would have liked it a lot more, because I could easily be convinced that Eight goes from "not fighting this war" denial to "I hate it but I'll do it" when he's under sufficient pressure. And I'm not completely opposed to the idea that he chooses to regenerate in order to do so, because that is actually close to my own headcanon regarding regenerations - they are a form of adaptation to the circumstances in which a Time Lord regenerates. But in the cliff-notes version, this story is rather undignified.