Doctor Who: 7x03 review
Spoilers.
Okay. Over all I like this episode, but there's one point in the episode that makes me unspeakably furious. But we'll get to that!
First off, note how Amy is wearing a nicely fitted leather jacket? That's a companion's farewell jacket. They wear variations of those just before their last appearances or during their last arc. See: Rose, Martha, Donna, Mickey and now Amy. Jack wore a leather vest before he departed as an official companion, too, but. Doesn't really count.
Anyway, the first trailer totally made this episode misleading, mixing up Asylum, Dinos and this. Not gonna lie, the initial mix could have made for something interesting: a town where time is totally mish-mashed...but this is better, because Moffat does "ALL OF TIME AT ONCE!" too often.
Anyway, Matt's fake American accent is cute, but Ben totally steals the show, there really wasn't much point to have Amy and Rory in this one, Ben would have made a perfectly good companion all on his own (and the companions contribute next to nothing after he dies, so really there's no reason he couldn't have been on his own in this one.) Seriously, I don't even have much to say about Rory in this episode other than he's level headed and stands around looking cool. I'd have loved to see Rory and Isaac team up more.
So. Ben is fantastic and seriously just outshines all of them. It's amazing. He needs more parts D: Ben why are you so under-appreciated? Why does everyone blame you for SG-1 ending when you were what kept it going longer than it would have? Anyway, it's my headcanon that SG-1 got stuck in the past again, and 'Isaac' is the last survivor of whatever. It's why he's so fine with the technological advancement and aliens.
So the episode is fairly predictable up until the Doctor gets back and accuses Jex, then everything just goes insane. Up until this point pretty much the only weak point is the stupid horse-talk. Stop it, Doctor. Talking to babies and animals (sometimes, apparently) isn't cute, it's irritating.
I mean, I knew something had to go wrong so it was no surprise to find out Jex was the bad guy. It's everything that happens after that which is crazy. The Doctor accuses Jex of being a war criminal, and despite Jex assuming Isaac wouldn't be happy with that--and then, you know, taking Amy hostage--Isaac actually doesn't care much. Amy has apparently decided that Killing Is Always Bad, while Rory the Roman realizes that some people do horrible things and you don't slap them on the wrist and say "Bad, Jex! Bad! Go live out your life adored by people and called hero now!" Or, y'know, he just doesn't care. It's hard to say with this episode.
Jex makes the really stupid choice of goading the Doctor after showing himself to be a murderer who experimented on innocent people and then called himself a hero for it, and finally, finally the Doctor snaps back at some madman calling them the same and hauls him off. Amy has a fit, but sadly no one stops her from coming with. Ultimately, he shoves Jex out and draws a gun on him, in a really interesting moment where he says "I genuinely don't know" whether he'll shoot Jex if he tries to run. I think he would, and personally I like that. Firstly because it's character growth and obviously moving him ever closer to being the Valeyard, and second because 'the man who never would' is an enormous hypocrite. Despite what some of fandom seems to think, he has always killed his enemies. From the First Doctor all the way to Tenth and Eleventh, and even his future incarnations. When the time comes, when people step over that invisible line, he kills them. Sometimes he lets them do it to themselves, sometimes he allows something to happen, sometimes he'll come outright and do it (and he's fought in wars, too, do not ever mistake the Doctor for a man who won't kill) but somehow he thinks not using a gun (except when, y'know, he does) makes him morally superior to those who do.
So. The Doctor is finally snapping back at an idiot who would compare what he does to experimenting in innocents, holding a gun and enforcing justice. It's a little bit god-complexy, but sometimes that's what his job is. Then Amy grabs a gun and starts throwing a fit with bullets instead, and no one just takes the gun back from her. Okay then. She starts to moral-speech him and he counters with reason, which she retaliates with...guilt.
What really annoys me here is she's right. He becomes crueler and less forgiving without his companions and desperately needs them. BUT. NOT. THIS. TIME. I actually wanted to punch Amy. Just. Right in the face. That she would dare to compare a man who makes guns or even bombs to a man who stood there and took people apart while they screamed is just. I can't even. Jex is a monster, not someone who can do a few good deeds and change his address and make it all better again. And he's not some man who's seen the light and changed, he's still willing to hurt other people in exchange for his own life, and he still sees his work as something good even if he's also guilty for it. He's just rationalizing his guilt away, acting as if it means something that he remembers the names and realizes he's wronged those people. Knowing them and knowing it was wrong to do didn't stop him from torturing people to death, it doesn't give him some sort of a pass.
So.
Isaac dies to save him, because he's a firm believer in second chances and doesn't have the knowledge of World War II and human experimentation to look back on. The Doctor then determines if the murderer doesn't survive, Isaac died for nothing and Ben is too awesome to die pointlessly. So the cyborg decides he wants to go for a high noon showdown, and they all go back to the jail, with Amy looking pretty okay about her decision sparing a guilty man and getting an innocent man killed and now endangering the entire city. I wonder if this is an effort to wean us of Amy in case she dies (I don't know yet if anyone even knows who does or if anyone will. I like it that way) so that everyone will just be too angry with her being irritating each episode to care.
The town try to lynch mob again, and the Doctor comes out with a gun he has no point in wearing because he won't actually use it (though it's interesting he implies that maybe he'd try if he had to), and again...the citizens are portrayed as wrong to want him thrown out and they are, because it's not about punishing him for his crimes or allowing him to be punished, it's just about fear and casting out one of their own. Because they don't know about the atrocities he committed. So. Nice one there, faux-Americans. The Doctor gives an anti-violence speech and apparently is pretty much back to normal.
I have little more to say on the episode. For some reason Jex continues to goad the Doctor while intermittently attempting to guilt him and make him feel sorry for him, I suppose trying to find a way to absolve himself of his sins by convincing himself that the Doctor really is just like him. Then the Doctor seems to get an idea which...is never really elaborated on, because instead we have this weird plan of everyone running around with Jex tattoos and despite his threats the Gunslinger does not shoot everyone. Jex then escapes and apparently the Doctor's plan was "Make it someone else's problem". Yeah. Great move, Doctor.
Instead Jex decides to go out in a blaze of glory before he can add even more people on his list of people he's dragging up that mountain, and the Doctor decides to make the killer cyborg the Marshall of the town. Because no one else in the town is actually enough of a minor character to really warrant that beyond the preacher and the 19 year old, and I'm not sure we even get their names.
Amy and Rory continue to ask to be dropped off even though they didn't get to go where they were planning this time. Really, they need to just accept they are no longer companions and get him a new companion. Isaac would have been a great companion. Sob.
One last note because it's driving me crazy that no one has addressed this: Am I the only one who actually saw what Toby was referencing with Jex? The quandary of the Nazi scientists who experimented on humans in the war and were granted asylum and nice new lives for their technological advances after the war? I am actually gobsmacked by fandom being angry at the Doctor over wanting to allow a murdering sociopath who experimented on innocent people to make living weapons to murder more people to die by the hand of what he created. Why, because he saved a maximum of eighty people from a sickness with a cure he had on him and gave them some luxuries? No. Making nice doesn't absolve you of war crimes. And in Jex's case 'making nice' meant putting a gun to Amy's head to preserve his own life. He hadn't changed, he even called himself a war hero, he'd just found a nicer place to live in so he could more easily be a nicer person.
WTF even moral are you trying to push, show? Nonviolence at all costs, even when it means standing idly by while a mass murder gets away with his crimes? That's pretty extreme even for you, Doctor Who. And it's not even close to okay.
Okay. Over all I like this episode, but there's one point in the episode that makes me unspeakably furious. But we'll get to that!
First off, note how Amy is wearing a nicely fitted leather jacket? That's a companion's farewell jacket. They wear variations of those just before their last appearances or during their last arc. See: Rose, Martha, Donna, Mickey and now Amy. Jack wore a leather vest before he departed as an official companion, too, but. Doesn't really count.
Anyway, the first trailer totally made this episode misleading, mixing up Asylum, Dinos and this. Not gonna lie, the initial mix could have made for something interesting: a town where time is totally mish-mashed...but this is better, because Moffat does "ALL OF TIME AT ONCE!" too often.
Anyway, Matt's fake American accent is cute, but Ben totally steals the show, there really wasn't much point to have Amy and Rory in this one, Ben would have made a perfectly good companion all on his own (and the companions contribute next to nothing after he dies, so really there's no reason he couldn't have been on his own in this one.) Seriously, I don't even have much to say about Rory in this episode other than he's level headed and stands around looking cool. I'd have loved to see Rory and Isaac team up more.
So. Ben is fantastic and seriously just outshines all of them. It's amazing. He needs more parts D: Ben why are you so under-appreciated? Why does everyone blame you for SG-1 ending when you were what kept it going longer than it would have? Anyway, it's my headcanon that SG-1 got stuck in the past again, and 'Isaac' is the last survivor of whatever. It's why he's so fine with the technological advancement and aliens.
So the episode is fairly predictable up until the Doctor gets back and accuses Jex, then everything just goes insane. Up until this point pretty much the only weak point is the stupid horse-talk. Stop it, Doctor. Talking to babies and animals (sometimes, apparently) isn't cute, it's irritating.
I mean, I knew something had to go wrong so it was no surprise to find out Jex was the bad guy. It's everything that happens after that which is crazy. The Doctor accuses Jex of being a war criminal, and despite Jex assuming Isaac wouldn't be happy with that--and then, you know, taking Amy hostage--Isaac actually doesn't care much. Amy has apparently decided that Killing Is Always Bad, while Rory the Roman realizes that some people do horrible things and you don't slap them on the wrist and say "Bad, Jex! Bad! Go live out your life adored by people and called hero now!" Or, y'know, he just doesn't care. It's hard to say with this episode.
Jex makes the really stupid choice of goading the Doctor after showing himself to be a murderer who experimented on innocent people and then called himself a hero for it, and finally, finally the Doctor snaps back at some madman calling them the same and hauls him off. Amy has a fit, but sadly no one stops her from coming with. Ultimately, he shoves Jex out and draws a gun on him, in a really interesting moment where he says "I genuinely don't know" whether he'll shoot Jex if he tries to run. I think he would, and personally I like that. Firstly because it's character growth and obviously moving him ever closer to being the Valeyard, and second because 'the man who never would' is an enormous hypocrite. Despite what some of fandom seems to think, he has always killed his enemies. From the First Doctor all the way to Tenth and Eleventh, and even his future incarnations. When the time comes, when people step over that invisible line, he kills them. Sometimes he lets them do it to themselves, sometimes he allows something to happen, sometimes he'll come outright and do it (and he's fought in wars, too, do not ever mistake the Doctor for a man who won't kill) but somehow he thinks not using a gun (except when, y'know, he does) makes him morally superior to those who do.
So. The Doctor is finally snapping back at an idiot who would compare what he does to experimenting in innocents, holding a gun and enforcing justice. It's a little bit god-complexy, but sometimes that's what his job is. Then Amy grabs a gun and starts throwing a fit with bullets instead, and no one just takes the gun back from her. Okay then. She starts to moral-speech him and he counters with reason, which she retaliates with...guilt.
What really annoys me here is she's right. He becomes crueler and less forgiving without his companions and desperately needs them. BUT. NOT. THIS. TIME. I actually wanted to punch Amy. Just. Right in the face. That she would dare to compare a man who makes guns or even bombs to a man who stood there and took people apart while they screamed is just. I can't even. Jex is a monster, not someone who can do a few good deeds and change his address and make it all better again. And he's not some man who's seen the light and changed, he's still willing to hurt other people in exchange for his own life, and he still sees his work as something good even if he's also guilty for it. He's just rationalizing his guilt away, acting as if it means something that he remembers the names and realizes he's wronged those people. Knowing them and knowing it was wrong to do didn't stop him from torturing people to death, it doesn't give him some sort of a pass.
So.
Isaac dies to save him, because he's a firm believer in second chances and doesn't have the knowledge of World War II and human experimentation to look back on. The Doctor then determines if the murderer doesn't survive, Isaac died for nothing and Ben is too awesome to die pointlessly. So the cyborg decides he wants to go for a high noon showdown, and they all go back to the jail, with Amy looking pretty okay about her decision sparing a guilty man and getting an innocent man killed and now endangering the entire city. I wonder if this is an effort to wean us of Amy in case she dies (I don't know yet if anyone even knows who does or if anyone will. I like it that way) so that everyone will just be too angry with her being irritating each episode to care.
The town try to lynch mob again, and the Doctor comes out with a gun he has no point in wearing because he won't actually use it (though it's interesting he implies that maybe he'd try if he had to), and again...the citizens are portrayed as wrong to want him thrown out and they are, because it's not about punishing him for his crimes or allowing him to be punished, it's just about fear and casting out one of their own. Because they don't know about the atrocities he committed. So. Nice one there, faux-Americans. The Doctor gives an anti-violence speech and apparently is pretty much back to normal.
I have little more to say on the episode. For some reason Jex continues to goad the Doctor while intermittently attempting to guilt him and make him feel sorry for him, I suppose trying to find a way to absolve himself of his sins by convincing himself that the Doctor really is just like him. Then the Doctor seems to get an idea which...is never really elaborated on, because instead we have this weird plan of everyone running around with Jex tattoos and despite his threats the Gunslinger does not shoot everyone. Jex then escapes and apparently the Doctor's plan was "Make it someone else's problem". Yeah. Great move, Doctor.
Instead Jex decides to go out in a blaze of glory before he can add even more people on his list of people he's dragging up that mountain, and the Doctor decides to make the killer cyborg the Marshall of the town. Because no one else in the town is actually enough of a minor character to really warrant that beyond the preacher and the 19 year old, and I'm not sure we even get their names.
Amy and Rory continue to ask to be dropped off even though they didn't get to go where they were planning this time. Really, they need to just accept they are no longer companions and get him a new companion. Isaac would have been a great companion. Sob.
One last note because it's driving me crazy that no one has addressed this: Am I the only one who actually saw what Toby was referencing with Jex? The quandary of the Nazi scientists who experimented on humans in the war and were granted asylum and nice new lives for their technological advances after the war? I am actually gobsmacked by fandom being angry at the Doctor over wanting to allow a murdering sociopath who experimented on innocent people to make living weapons to murder more people to die by the hand of what he created. Why, because he saved a maximum of eighty people from a sickness with a cure he had on him and gave them some luxuries? No. Making nice doesn't absolve you of war crimes. And in Jex's case 'making nice' meant putting a gun to Amy's head to preserve his own life. He hadn't changed, he even called himself a war hero, he'd just found a nicer place to live in so he could more easily be a nicer person.
WTF even moral are you trying to push, show? Nonviolence at all costs, even when it means standing idly by while a mass murder gets away with his crimes? That's pretty extreme even for you, Doctor Who. And it's not even close to okay.