Doctor Who, 4.08 & 4.09
I managed to catch up on Doctor Who on Monday, and in a way I'm glad that I watched 4.08, "Silence in the Library," all the way through to 4.12, "The Stolen Earth." I think it helped me keep some stuff fresh in mind for the giant WTF of the season. *g*
4.08 & 4.09, Silence in the Library/Forests of the Dead
Wikipedia tells me that Steven Moffat has only written one set of episode(s) per season, which surprises me for some reason. I guess I haven't really been paying that much attention (obsessive attention to who writes what kind of smacks of my time with Farscape, and I've vowed never to be that deeply involved with a work of fiction EVER AGAIN, thank you very much. It's worked for me so far.) But Moffat, who wrote this two-parter, also wrote The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, The Girl in the Fireplace, and Blink. His contributions to S1 and S3 are far and away my favorites, and I liked TGITF a lot, so I'm not surprised that I ABSOLUTELY ADORED these two episodes.
(On a related note, HOW AWESOME is S5 going to be with Moffat at the helm? I mean, either that, or he's going to go down in flames. One hopes not.)
Okay, now that the fangirling portion of this post is over, back to business.
These episodes work on two levels. First, the storyline is well-crafted and the pacing, acting, etc are all spot-on. (The Doctor should probably not fall great distances twice in one episode and have no problems with it, but that may be my only complaint.) The Vashta Nerada are a creepy idea - although not quite as creepy as the weeping angels from Blink, which still kind of freak me out sometimes when I'm trying to go to sleep and leave me trying to convince myself that they don't even kill you, so I shouldn't be so scared. (I, uh, may have slept with a light on immediately after watching these episodes, however. What can I say? I'm a wimp when it comes to horror.) The Vastha Nerada gave me profound shivers the first time they were mentioned: "Almost every species in the universe has an irrational fear of the dark...but it's not irrational." ACK ACK ACK. I think their main downfall is that a skeleton in a space suit is inherently campy, rather than inherently scary. But you know...I'm okay with that. I'm 29 years old and I'd rather not have to sleep with a nightlight.
However, it's the B-plot with Professor River Song that makes these episodes so fantastic. It's no secret that I have a huge time travel kink, and being that DW is a show about a time traveller, you'd think that it would push my buttons on that level more often. But with the exception of the trick with his tie when meeting Martha, almost all of the Doctor's interactions with other people move forward in a linear direction for both parties. I suppose that's for the sake of clarity, which is fine, but this glimpse of what it COULD do has left me all a-quiver. I want this storyline NOW. The idea that maybe we'll never get it depresses me. OR MAYBE WE WILL. With Steven Moffat in charge of S5, he could easily set something up in these episodes that he wants to revisit in the future. GOD, I HOPE SO.
And, you guys, Alex Kingston is magnificent. I've always liked Kingston, and one wonders if they cast an actress more familiar to American audiences on purpose? I'm sort of disappointed that they gave her kind of a lame name - don't they realize that no sci-fi show can now name a character River and have the name taken seriously? - but that did not detract for one moment from the greatness of her character or from that storyline.
Something was obviously up when she greeted the Doctor with "Hello, darling" - sure, human women have a distressing propensity to fall for him, but it usually takes longer than half a second. Her bemusement was a refreshing change even from Donna, who for all her insistence that she doesn't fancy the Doctor, is still in awe of him (when she isn't berating him!) And the easy familiarity she had with him, even once it became apparent that he didn't know who she was, said so much about the character in such a short space. I love that she called him "Pretty Boy" - in my head, this means that at some point in her journeys with him, he regenerated, and she nicknamed his previous body Pretty Boy to ease the confusion. What? It makes me laugh.
I could go on and on about every interaction and scene between these two, but that would quickly become a classic case of tl;dr. Let me just say that she's clearly everything needed to do away with some of the more obvious objections to the Doctor taking a human lover.
She's not a child - Alex Kingston is 45, so let's assume the character is about the same. Obviously, she's been with the Doctor for a long time; let's say at least ten or fifteen years of her life. River Song could easily have been at least 30 by the time she met the Doctor - enough time to have had several relationships under her belt already, not to mention...
She's an educated professional. At least in New Who, the Doctor is usually so far above his companions in terms of knowledge and experience that it creates a huge power imbalance, which could be kind of skeezy if examined too closely. Martha is an educated professional, but she's young. Donna's an adult, and plenty clever, but even "SuperTemp" can't match up to "900 year old alien genius" in terms of power differential.
Beyond that, the Doctor has shown time and again that he can't help, at times, viewing 21st century humans as sort of quaintly provincial in terms of attitude and worldview. This isn't an issue here.
In a way, River Song is kind of the female Jack, except that she doesn't have his egocentrism (or at least it wasn't in evidence here.)
The Doctor clearly didn't like the idea that she knew things about him that he didn't, and he also didn't like the idea that at some point in his future, he was going to take this woman as his lover (or geez, possibly even his wife?!? - which aside from the WTF factor, was hilarious.) Before he quite realized that part, he didn't like the idea that he goes back in her timeline and takes her as his companion. And beyond even that, it took him quite a bit of time to warm to the idea that someone in the room was able to even approach him in terms of cleverness and good old-fashioned technological magic. He only really seems to come to terms with it (and realize how handy it would be) when River Song uses the gravity platform, and he says, "Oh, I bet I like you." ("You do." ADORABLE.) But at first, there was just nothing about her that he liked (including, unfortunately, her self-confidence. Oh, Doctor - you and your issues.)
That scene where she whispers in his ear the word that makes him trust her and believe her was a real gem. The stunned look on his face, with just a trace of dismay; the sadness on hers; the way they said so much in the silences. But why is she sorry? Is she sorry that she had to tell him something that would make him realize they were lovers, which was a "spoiler?" Or was it something else? Was she sorry because his name reminds him of the world he lost? Was she sorry because he just has a really, really stupid name that he hates? Maybe it's Engbert or something.
The way Rose and Martha and even Donna talk about the Doctor reminds me of people with an obsessive, awed crush. But the way River Song talked about the Doctor reminded me of the admiration and affection of some of the most successful married couples I know. And then, that last scene.
First off, she punches him out! Wow, clearly, someone needed to do that to the Doctor a long time ago. And when he wakes up and asks her why she has handcuffs, her cheeky smile and "Spoilers!" cemented my belief that she managed to be sexier in a huge white space suit than Rose managed in two years of tight cleavagey tops.
But it's that last bit, where she's doing most of the talking, that just absolutely killed me. Her sudden realization that this means that he's known how she would die the entire time they've known one another was like a gut-punch. And she couldn't help it, she told him about the last time she saw him, she told him what happened and what she concluded from it. Their "date" sounded beautiful, and she was trying not to cry. (I, on the other hand, lost that battle almost immediately. Tears. Streaming down my face.)
I have to assume that when the Doctor says there's only one way he ever could tell her his name, he means that they'd have to be lovers. Or possibly even in the act of love-making. Which, I know very little about Classic Who, but that does pose a problem by the name of Romana. Eh, maybe it's a Time Lord-human thing. Still, David Tennant really hit it out of the park in this scene - oh, the look of utter defeat on his face as he silently watches her die. (And, he watches.)
I like that it still bothered him why he'd give even his True Love his sonic screwdriver. He just knew it wasn't like himself, and that's what made it a workable tactic to save her. She, like the rest of her crew, couldn't be saved in body like Donna, because their bodies were destroyed, whereas Donna's body was "saved" during teleport. And yet, by saving River Song to the library's hard drive and fixing the world so it was a good place, he's essentially ensured that she will live forever. Interestingly, he's saved her in much the same way that Rose was saved (at least originally) in "The Parting of the Ways" - she's alive, she's fine, but he can never see her again. (Unlike Rose, however, River Song seemed ready and grateful to adapt. Sure, she's probably sad, but she well knew that this would end sooner or later, and I'd like to think that she never uttered/utters the word "forever" in connection to her relationship with him. In addition, she knew she was going to die, and had probably long ago come to terms with her own mortality and the idea that she could die while working with the Doctor.)
And then...anyone else get chills when he snapped his fingers and the TARDIS doors opened?
In sum, I want the storyline of the Doctor and River Song now now now.
4.08 & 4.09, Silence in the Library/Forests of the Dead
Wikipedia tells me that Steven Moffat has only written one set of episode(s) per season, which surprises me for some reason. I guess I haven't really been paying that much attention (obsessive attention to who writes what kind of smacks of my time with Farscape, and I've vowed never to be that deeply involved with a work of fiction EVER AGAIN, thank you very much. It's worked for me so far.) But Moffat, who wrote this two-parter, also wrote The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, The Girl in the Fireplace, and Blink. His contributions to S1 and S3 are far and away my favorites, and I liked TGITF a lot, so I'm not surprised that I ABSOLUTELY ADORED these two episodes.
(On a related note, HOW AWESOME is S5 going to be with Moffat at the helm? I mean, either that, or he's going to go down in flames. One hopes not.)
Okay, now that the fangirling portion of this post is over, back to business.
These episodes work on two levels. First, the storyline is well-crafted and the pacing, acting, etc are all spot-on. (The Doctor should probably not fall great distances twice in one episode and have no problems with it, but that may be my only complaint.) The Vashta Nerada are a creepy idea - although not quite as creepy as the weeping angels from Blink, which still kind of freak me out sometimes when I'm trying to go to sleep and leave me trying to convince myself that they don't even kill you, so I shouldn't be so scared. (I, uh, may have slept with a light on immediately after watching these episodes, however. What can I say? I'm a wimp when it comes to horror.) The Vastha Nerada gave me profound shivers the first time they were mentioned: "Almost every species in the universe has an irrational fear of the dark...but it's not irrational." ACK ACK ACK. I think their main downfall is that a skeleton in a space suit is inherently campy, rather than inherently scary. But you know...I'm okay with that. I'm 29 years old and I'd rather not have to sleep with a nightlight.
However, it's the B-plot with Professor River Song that makes these episodes so fantastic. It's no secret that I have a huge time travel kink, and being that DW is a show about a time traveller, you'd think that it would push my buttons on that level more often. But with the exception of the trick with his tie when meeting Martha, almost all of the Doctor's interactions with other people move forward in a linear direction for both parties. I suppose that's for the sake of clarity, which is fine, but this glimpse of what it COULD do has left me all a-quiver. I want this storyline NOW. The idea that maybe we'll never get it depresses me. OR MAYBE WE WILL. With Steven Moffat in charge of S5, he could easily set something up in these episodes that he wants to revisit in the future. GOD, I HOPE SO.
And, you guys, Alex Kingston is magnificent. I've always liked Kingston, and one wonders if they cast an actress more familiar to American audiences on purpose? I'm sort of disappointed that they gave her kind of a lame name - don't they realize that no sci-fi show can now name a character River and have the name taken seriously? - but that did not detract for one moment from the greatness of her character or from that storyline.
Something was obviously up when she greeted the Doctor with "Hello, darling" - sure, human women have a distressing propensity to fall for him, but it usually takes longer than half a second. Her bemusement was a refreshing change even from Donna, who for all her insistence that she doesn't fancy the Doctor, is still in awe of him (when she isn't berating him!) And the easy familiarity she had with him, even once it became apparent that he didn't know who she was, said so much about the character in such a short space. I love that she called him "Pretty Boy" - in my head, this means that at some point in her journeys with him, he regenerated, and she nicknamed his previous body Pretty Boy to ease the confusion. What? It makes me laugh.
I could go on and on about every interaction and scene between these two, but that would quickly become a classic case of tl;dr. Let me just say that she's clearly everything needed to do away with some of the more obvious objections to the Doctor taking a human lover.
In a way, River Song is kind of the female Jack, except that she doesn't have his egocentrism (or at least it wasn't in evidence here.)
The Doctor clearly didn't like the idea that she knew things about him that he didn't, and he also didn't like the idea that at some point in his future, he was going to take this woman as his lover (or geez, possibly even his wife?!? - which aside from the WTF factor, was hilarious.) Before he quite realized that part, he didn't like the idea that he goes back in her timeline and takes her as his companion. And beyond even that, it took him quite a bit of time to warm to the idea that someone in the room was able to even approach him in terms of cleverness and good old-fashioned technological magic. He only really seems to come to terms with it (and realize how handy it would be) when River Song uses the gravity platform, and he says, "Oh, I bet I like you." ("You do." ADORABLE.) But at first, there was just nothing about her that he liked (including, unfortunately, her self-confidence. Oh, Doctor - you and your issues.)
That scene where she whispers in his ear the word that makes him trust her and believe her was a real gem. The stunned look on his face, with just a trace of dismay; the sadness on hers; the way they said so much in the silences. But why is she sorry? Is she sorry that she had to tell him something that would make him realize they were lovers, which was a "spoiler?" Or was it something else? Was she sorry because his name reminds him of the world he lost? Was she sorry because he just has a really, really stupid name that he hates? Maybe it's Engbert or something.
The way Rose and Martha and even Donna talk about the Doctor reminds me of people with an obsessive, awed crush. But the way River Song talked about the Doctor reminded me of the admiration and affection of some of the most successful married couples I know. And then, that last scene.
First off, she punches him out! Wow, clearly, someone needed to do that to the Doctor a long time ago. And when he wakes up and asks her why she has handcuffs, her cheeky smile and "Spoilers!" cemented my belief that she managed to be sexier in a huge white space suit than Rose managed in two years of tight cleavagey tops.
But it's that last bit, where she's doing most of the talking, that just absolutely killed me. Her sudden realization that this means that he's known how she would die the entire time they've known one another was like a gut-punch. And she couldn't help it, she told him about the last time she saw him, she told him what happened and what she concluded from it. Their "date" sounded beautiful, and she was trying not to cry. (I, on the other hand, lost that battle almost immediately. Tears. Streaming down my face.)
I have to assume that when the Doctor says there's only one way he ever could tell her his name, he means that they'd have to be lovers. Or possibly even in the act of love-making. Which, I know very little about Classic Who, but that does pose a problem by the name of Romana. Eh, maybe it's a Time Lord-human thing. Still, David Tennant really hit it out of the park in this scene - oh, the look of utter defeat on his face as he silently watches her die. (And, he watches.)
I like that it still bothered him why he'd give even his True Love his sonic screwdriver. He just knew it wasn't like himself, and that's what made it a workable tactic to save her. She, like the rest of her crew, couldn't be saved in body like Donna, because their bodies were destroyed, whereas Donna's body was "saved" during teleport. And yet, by saving River Song to the library's hard drive and fixing the world so it was a good place, he's essentially ensured that she will live forever. Interestingly, he's saved her in much the same way that Rose was saved (at least originally) in "The Parting of the Ways" - she's alive, she's fine, but he can never see her again. (Unlike Rose, however, River Song seemed ready and grateful to adapt. Sure, she's probably sad, but she well knew that this would end sooner or later, and I'd like to think that she never uttered/utters the word "forever" in connection to her relationship with him. In addition, she knew she was going to die, and had probably long ago come to terms with her own mortality and the idea that she could die while working with the Doctor.)
And then...anyone else get chills when he snapped his fingers and the TARDIS doors opened?
In sum, I want the storyline of the Doctor and River Song now now now.