i fought the daleks, and i am human. remember me.
Re: Asylum of the Daleks
er
well
that was a bloody mess of an episode, wasn't it?
I won't say there weren't some good things - there definitely were - and I've disliked or felt generally neutral towards a good number of DW episodes before, in every season; in fact, the number of episodes I dislike/feel neutral about usually outnumber the ones I love, but then the ones I love are the sort to twist my heart into shapes, and there's some form of balance in my appreciation of the show. But this - especially as a series opener - was more of a let-down than anything else.
Moffat's warned us that there wouldn't be any two-parters in this series, which is a shame, because this had the potential to be elaborated upon and developed in such a way as to give context and consistence to many of the issues this episode touches so very, so unfortunately briefly. Instead, the pace was much too rapid, and everything felt rushed, and, as a result, rather contrived - it's Moffat's eternal flaw to tell rather than to show, all crammed up in one neat sample episode.
Amy and Rory's break-up and reconciliation, for one, was something I was very much looking forward to - I knew something like this was coming since some set photos came out a few months ago of rory carrying divorce papers, and Pond Life very much carried that point home - but I assumed it was going to be part of the greater story arc, not a one-episode issue that will (presumably) never be talked of again. It had such potential for angst and pining on both of their parts, and you guys know I adore this trope - the best friends or lovers being drawn apart by their differences, and coming to reconcile over time? works on me, every damn time. (Which is why I love The Social Network fic so, and why fireblazie has recently been plying me with all the XM:FC fics.)
So I was expecting! UST! Angst! Pining! Stressful situations and miscommunication and misunderstandings! And we got a little of that, sure, but the episode was short as all hell and focused rather heavily on several completely different things at once - the Doctor's relationship with the Daleks, the Asylum plot, Oswin's storyline, and Amy and Rory's relationship - so that they all, eventually, fell somewhat short of being emotionally accessible. I did love their final fight, I'll admit, if only because I have a sadistic streak as regards my ships and I have wanted Rory and Amy to be properly, actually angry at one another for a very long time; to have them shout at each other over which of them loved one another the most was incredibly satisfying. Amy's declaration that Rory is wrong to think he loves her more than she loves him was a long, long time coming - we knew that, since Amy's Choice and even more so since The Girl Who Waited, but Rory didn't, and it was important that he should know, even if it got them nearly through divorce and losing one another altogether to find that truth in their relationship.
But the reasons why Amy decided to give Rory up were so nonsensically stupid on Moffat's part - not only is it reducing Amy's role once more to that of the mother, as though Amy was meant to be grateful that Rory is willing to be with her despite her impossibility to bear children; Rory Pond, who would love her however she were and because of whatever she is, not in spite of it - I mean. That's. Part of who Rory is. His unconditional love for Amy is at the core of him, in the same way that Amy's desire to have more than a mundane life is at the core of her; it may matter to Rory they can't have children that they can see grow, that they can raise, but that's never, ever going to be something that will separate him from her. I don't think there's anything, at this point, that could separate him from her, and the fact that Amy didn't realize that seems to indicate that what he considers as his own insecurity (his belief that Amy doesn't love him as much as he loves her) is in fact shared by Amy herself. But Moffat's projecting his own issues of "womanhood is defined by motherhood" upon Amy again; he's once more defining her (and her self-worth) by her capacity to have children, and it's getting old very, very fast.
And, you know, there would have been ways to treat this properly, to address this as an actual problem, as something that hurts them, instead of as a one-episode plot device - to have Pond Life show us moments when Rory watches newborns at his job and realizes that he'll never raise his own daughter or son; when Amy catches sight of a child on the street and feels uncontrollably, impossibly sad; when she gets back from the doctor who told her she'll never have another child and she and Rory break down in each other's arms - it would certainly have made this episode more emotionally accessible, Amy's decision to leave Rory over it more understandable, and their reconciliation and comprehension that they are both tremendously afraid of being left behind all the more heartwarming. I was expecting a hell of a lot more out of that storyline; I was expecting it to hurt, to be drawn-out and dragged out over several episodes, and then it… wasn't. God, this episode could have worked so much better as a two-parter. (And with one hundred percent less sexism, but I'm not going to hold my breath for that so long as I'm watching Moffat's episodes, I'm afraid.)
As for the Daleks:
I'm completely baffled by the decision to erase the Doctor altogether from their memories (hello, time war, the whole DW mythology, the Daleks' entire existences are shaped around the Doctor by now - how do you change that? you don't), and I dearly hope it will be retconned at some point, either by Moffat or by whoever comes after him and fixes his messes. If there's anything that this episode drove home, it's that the Daleks need the Doctor, as much as the Doctor needs them, because the Daleks make him good, the Daleks will always, always be worse than he is, never mind everything he did, never mind that he committed genocide, never mind that he essentially mind-fucked the entire human population into committing genocide; the Doctor is a deeply, deeply fucked-up person, who's committed terrible crimes, and who might very well be considered a villain in a flipped context, never mind his huge, immense, endless capacity to love and cherish. (And oh, wouldn't that be an interesting premise, to see him for the length of an episode through the eyes of those he doesn't save, but rather those whose lives he destroys?)
That's been touched upon several times in the course of the show, but it's a fact that's constantly undermined by his having enemies, his having nemeses that're worse than he is, make him seem good and helpful in comparison. The Daleks are meant to be that, and they set up a distinction, a frontier line that the Doctor does not and will not cross. And yet if there's one thing that this episode did do very well, it is to show us how deeply terrifying the Doctor can be. Imagine the same context from the point of view of the Daleks; they deeply, deeply fear the Asylum and what is in it: insane(r) versions of themselves, who'd be hell bent on destroying their own civilization if they got out. They're themselves their greatest fear and their greatest danger; so they call the greater fear - the one monster whom they hate just enough to find beautiful, and oh how i did love that line - in order to save them.
That's fucking fascinating, and Moffat could have done something a lot more elaborate and interesting out of that. I hope it's something that comes up repeatedly in the course of this series' arc, because it could turn out to be much more fascinating than Demon's Run ("you've never risen higher" my arse) and to resonate with the fiftieth anniversary stunningly well, at that. Eleven is getting darker and darker, in a way that Ten never was - because Ten's darkness came from loneliness first and power second, and Eleven's is coming from a place between fear of himself and sheer megalomania - and out of every scene in this episode, the one that exemplified it the best was his straightforward declaration to Oswin that she wasn't human any longer. "You're not human. You're a Dalek." The look on his face.
Oswin - oh god, Oswin. I'm so torn. I loved her character; I loved her pluck and her courage and her intelligence and her wit and her beautiful smile, but at the same time I am pissed that Moffat once more created a strong, wonderful female character only to write her into a storyline that manipulates and dominates her, makes her quite literally into nothing more than a sacrificial puppet (see also: River Song, Irene Adler, oh my beautiful ladies and their self-destructive storylines). Fuck it, but I wanted her to get out of there. I wanted her not to be a Dalek, even though it was obvious from the start, I wanted a way out, I wanted a happy goddamn ending.
Still, and this is where the saving grace comes in, what should matter about Oswin is that, in the end, she is stronger than her storyline. Oswin is transformed into a Dalek and she remains still, somewhere inside, making soufflés and talking to her mother and listening to Carmen. Oswin knows, deep-down, what has happened to her; she knows what a transformation into a Dalek does to you, to your capacity to hate, to your capacity to love, and she hangs on to what makes her happy, to what she loves, to her knowledge that her heart makes her human. She's more than the box she's being shut up in. She makes herself a home inside a Dalek's metal frame. She takes her instinct to exterminate and alters it to eggs, the very place where life is born.
She makes life out of death - her own life, out of her own death. And that, ultimately, was beautiful.
I have no idea how Jenna Louise Coleman's companion will tie in with the timeline during the Christmas Special and beyond; perhaps she'll be Oswin from before she crashed in the Asylum, or Oswin from an alternate universe, or a clone, or an android with the same face and personality, or a relative in a spatial genetic multiplicity loop - it wouldn't be the first time. Perhaps she'll be this Oswin, miraculously saved, and I'd lie if I said I didn't hope so, despite the fact that it'll never, ever happen.
Whatever happens, though, her future story and this episode are related somehow (if anything, her final remember cemented that; it was a nod as much to the Doctor as to the audience), and I'm certainly relieved - JLC was wonderful, and I fully trust that she and Matt Smith will construct a wonderful relationship for Eleven and perhaps!Oswin, regardless of Moffat's tropes and ego.
er
well
that was a bloody mess of an episode, wasn't it?
I won't say there weren't some good things - there definitely were - and I've disliked or felt generally neutral towards a good number of DW episodes before, in every season; in fact, the number of episodes I dislike/feel neutral about usually outnumber the ones I love, but then the ones I love are the sort to twist my heart into shapes, and there's some form of balance in my appreciation of the show. But this - especially as a series opener - was more of a let-down than anything else.
Moffat's warned us that there wouldn't be any two-parters in this series, which is a shame, because this had the potential to be elaborated upon and developed in such a way as to give context and consistence to many of the issues this episode touches so very, so unfortunately briefly. Instead, the pace was much too rapid, and everything felt rushed, and, as a result, rather contrived - it's Moffat's eternal flaw to tell rather than to show, all crammed up in one neat sample episode.
Amy and Rory's break-up and reconciliation, for one, was something I was very much looking forward to - I knew something like this was coming since some set photos came out a few months ago of rory carrying divorce papers, and Pond Life very much carried that point home - but I assumed it was going to be part of the greater story arc, not a one-episode issue that will (presumably) never be talked of again. It had such potential for angst and pining on both of their parts, and you guys know I adore this trope - the best friends or lovers being drawn apart by their differences, and coming to reconcile over time? works on me, every damn time. (Which is why I love The Social Network fic so, and why fireblazie has recently been plying me with all the XM:FC fics.)
So I was expecting! UST! Angst! Pining! Stressful situations and miscommunication and misunderstandings! And we got a little of that, sure, but the episode was short as all hell and focused rather heavily on several completely different things at once - the Doctor's relationship with the Daleks, the Asylum plot, Oswin's storyline, and Amy and Rory's relationship - so that they all, eventually, fell somewhat short of being emotionally accessible. I did love their final fight, I'll admit, if only because I have a sadistic streak as regards my ships and I have wanted Rory and Amy to be properly, actually angry at one another for a very long time; to have them shout at each other over which of them loved one another the most was incredibly satisfying. Amy's declaration that Rory is wrong to think he loves her more than she loves him was a long, long time coming - we knew that, since Amy's Choice and even more so since The Girl Who Waited, but Rory didn't, and it was important that he should know, even if it got them nearly through divorce and losing one another altogether to find that truth in their relationship.
But the reasons why Amy decided to give Rory up were so nonsensically stupid on Moffat's part - not only is it reducing Amy's role once more to that of the mother, as though Amy was meant to be grateful that Rory is willing to be with her despite her impossibility to bear children; Rory Pond, who would love her however she were and because of whatever she is, not in spite of it - I mean. That's. Part of who Rory is. His unconditional love for Amy is at the core of him, in the same way that Amy's desire to have more than a mundane life is at the core of her; it may matter to Rory they can't have children that they can see grow, that they can raise, but that's never, ever going to be something that will separate him from her. I don't think there's anything, at this point, that could separate him from her, and the fact that Amy didn't realize that seems to indicate that what he considers as his own insecurity (his belief that Amy doesn't love him as much as he loves her) is in fact shared by Amy herself. But Moffat's projecting his own issues of "womanhood is defined by motherhood" upon Amy again; he's once more defining her (and her self-worth) by her capacity to have children, and it's getting old very, very fast.
And, you know, there would have been ways to treat this properly, to address this as an actual problem, as something that hurts them, instead of as a one-episode plot device - to have Pond Life show us moments when Rory watches newborns at his job and realizes that he'll never raise his own daughter or son; when Amy catches sight of a child on the street and feels uncontrollably, impossibly sad; when she gets back from the doctor who told her she'll never have another child and she and Rory break down in each other's arms - it would certainly have made this episode more emotionally accessible, Amy's decision to leave Rory over it more understandable, and their reconciliation and comprehension that they are both tremendously afraid of being left behind all the more heartwarming. I was expecting a hell of a lot more out of that storyline; I was expecting it to hurt, to be drawn-out and dragged out over several episodes, and then it… wasn't. God, this episode could have worked so much better as a two-parter. (And with one hundred percent less sexism, but I'm not going to hold my breath for that so long as I'm watching Moffat's episodes, I'm afraid.)
As for the Daleks:
I'm completely baffled by the decision to erase the Doctor altogether from their memories (hello, time war, the whole DW mythology, the Daleks' entire existences are shaped around the Doctor by now - how do you change that? you don't), and I dearly hope it will be retconned at some point, either by Moffat or by whoever comes after him and fixes his messes. If there's anything that this episode drove home, it's that the Daleks need the Doctor, as much as the Doctor needs them, because the Daleks make him good, the Daleks will always, always be worse than he is, never mind everything he did, never mind that he committed genocide, never mind that he essentially mind-fucked the entire human population into committing genocide; the Doctor is a deeply, deeply fucked-up person, who's committed terrible crimes, and who might very well be considered a villain in a flipped context, never mind his huge, immense, endless capacity to love and cherish. (And oh, wouldn't that be an interesting premise, to see him for the length of an episode through the eyes of those he doesn't save, but rather those whose lives he destroys?)
That's been touched upon several times in the course of the show, but it's a fact that's constantly undermined by his having enemies, his having nemeses that're worse than he is, make him seem good and helpful in comparison. The Daleks are meant to be that, and they set up a distinction, a frontier line that the Doctor does not and will not cross. And yet if there's one thing that this episode did do very well, it is to show us how deeply terrifying the Doctor can be. Imagine the same context from the point of view of the Daleks; they deeply, deeply fear the Asylum and what is in it: insane(r) versions of themselves, who'd be hell bent on destroying their own civilization if they got out. They're themselves their greatest fear and their greatest danger; so they call the greater fear - the one monster whom they hate just enough to find beautiful, and oh how i did love that line - in order to save them.
That's fucking fascinating, and Moffat could have done something a lot more elaborate and interesting out of that. I hope it's something that comes up repeatedly in the course of this series' arc, because it could turn out to be much more fascinating than Demon's Run ("you've never risen higher" my arse) and to resonate with the fiftieth anniversary stunningly well, at that. Eleven is getting darker and darker, in a way that Ten never was - because Ten's darkness came from loneliness first and power second, and Eleven's is coming from a place between fear of himself and sheer megalomania - and out of every scene in this episode, the one that exemplified it the best was his straightforward declaration to Oswin that she wasn't human any longer. "You're not human. You're a Dalek." The look on his face.
Oswin - oh god, Oswin. I'm so torn. I loved her character; I loved her pluck and her courage and her intelligence and her wit and her beautiful smile, but at the same time I am pissed that Moffat once more created a strong, wonderful female character only to write her into a storyline that manipulates and dominates her, makes her quite literally into nothing more than a sacrificial puppet (see also: River Song, Irene Adler, oh my beautiful ladies and their self-destructive storylines). Fuck it, but I wanted her to get out of there. I wanted her not to be a Dalek, even though it was obvious from the start, I wanted a way out, I wanted a happy goddamn ending.
Still, and this is where the saving grace comes in, what should matter about Oswin is that, in the end, she is stronger than her storyline. Oswin is transformed into a Dalek and she remains still, somewhere inside, making soufflés and talking to her mother and listening to Carmen. Oswin knows, deep-down, what has happened to her; she knows what a transformation into a Dalek does to you, to your capacity to hate, to your capacity to love, and she hangs on to what makes her happy, to what she loves, to her knowledge that her heart makes her human. She's more than the box she's being shut up in. She makes herself a home inside a Dalek's metal frame. She takes her instinct to exterminate and alters it to eggs, the very place where life is born.
She makes life out of death - her own life, out of her own death. And that, ultimately, was beautiful.
I have no idea how Jenna Louise Coleman's companion will tie in with the timeline during the Christmas Special and beyond; perhaps she'll be Oswin from before she crashed in the Asylum, or Oswin from an alternate universe, or a clone, or an android with the same face and personality, or a relative in a spatial genetic multiplicity loop - it wouldn't be the first time. Perhaps she'll be this Oswin, miraculously saved, and I'd lie if I said I didn't hope so, despite the fact that it'll never, ever happen.
Whatever happens, though, her future story and this episode are related somehow (if anything, her final remember cemented that; it was a nod as much to the Doctor as to the audience), and I'm certainly relieved - JLC was wonderful, and I fully trust that she and Matt Smith will construct a wonderful relationship for Eleven and perhaps!Oswin, regardless of Moffat's tropes and ego.