Doctor Who: 3.13 "Last of the Time Lords"
What. The fuck. WAS. that shit?
Just . . . what the fuck, Rusty. You need to talk to Aaron Sorkin about the Right Way to write when high on crack. And possibly ask him where he gets his. That fucking Welsh shit you're smoking just is not working.
Yeah, okay, so the first part wasn't that bad if a bit cliched. Phenomenal cosmic powers, and the best the Master can do is putting the Doctor in the doghouse, enslaving the Jones family and chaining Jack up? The whole "put a guy on a chain and treat him like a dog until he goes insane and thinks he's actually a dog" has been done before by people far more evil than the Master. Plus, the Master hits Lucy. Good God. How much more cliche can you get? Try harder next time, Rusty, I think you forgot a couple. On the other hand, Badass!Martha, cute doctor guy, I'm almost willing to call it a wash. But not quite.
But then it just started to get stupid. Escape attempt? Not bad, but I knew it was doomed when I looked at the time elapsed on the scrubber bar. And then the Doctor turned into fucking Dobby the House-Elf. And then it turned out the idea I hoped really, really wasn't the case ended up being the case -- the only part I was wrong about was that Utopia wasn't a trap built by the Master. Of course, I think pretty much everyone guessed that the Toclafane were the humans that went to Utopia.
So a gun that kills Time Lords dead. I'd rather have had that than what we got. But, er, if the gun was just a decoy, then where the hell did it come from? And then, to paraphrase everyone on the Internet, I hate that the plan is that Martha gets everyone to believe in the Doctor on the Doctor's say-so. For one, it takes away from all the hard work she put in for that plan. He sits up on Valiant, doing what? Being old and ignoring the Master when he taunts him. And she is down there busting her ass, criss-crossing the globe and risking death every freakin' day but in the end she's just doing what she's told, the grunt work, he's the one that gets to be the Magical Flying Jesus.
And about that. His big plan is to become fucking Magical Flying Jesus? Rusty, you are fucking SHITTING me. We spend a whole year on "thinking you're a god is bad, you need someone to stop you" and then oh no, in the end it turns out that's okay, he actually BECOMES a god so it's all justified. We even get fucking crucifixion imagery and then, oh and then of course there's the kicker: The Doctor: "You know what I'm going to say." Me: "I forgive you." The Doctor: " . . . I forgive you." AGGH AGGH AGGH you want to toss in a "He knows not what he does" while you're at it there Rusty?
*bashes head against keyboard*
And as others have astutely pointed out, the whole Magical Flying Jesus thing isn't even what saved the world. JACK is the one who saved the world by taking a machine gun to the Paradox Machine. So the Doctor got to be a god and didn't even really DO ANYTHING.
Death of the Master. Now that was well-done. Tennant and Simm were just giving it all they had. And the whole bit with the Doctor demanding that the Master live, dammit, was fab -- first, it was wonderfully slashtastic (hooray for hoyay!) and second I can totally believe that the Doctor is so desperate just to have another Gallifreyan alive, even if he is completely evil and keeps trying to kill lots of people, that he would beg the Master to stay alive. Although it's a little pathetic that he tries to convince the Master to stay by in essence saying, "Remember that time you tried to kill a bunch of people and I stopped you? Oh, and remember that time you tried to kill a bunch of people and I stopped you?"
But of course, silly Doctor. The Master never stays dead. Not even things like running out of regenerations, being dropped in a black hole and sucked into the Eye of Harmony can kill the Master. I was sort of hoping that when Lucy shot the Master it was because she'd had enough of the abuse and was taking her chance to kill him -- but I think the last shot of the woman's hand picking up the ring makes it clear it was some sort of worst-case scenario escape plan he had cooked up and had her follow. They spent an awful lot of time on Lucy's hands and her long red fingernails earlier in the episode. If you show a gun on stage in the first act, it had better be fired in the third.
Of course Jack goes back to T'wood Three, even though the Doctor is suddenly totally over his racism. This must be his way of saying "oh, by the way, thanks for technically saving the world, even though in the grand scheme of things all you really did was take a machine gun to my TARDIS and Martha was way awesomer than you but I can never acknowledge this fact because she is not Rose." Jack is probably wise to decline, though. "I kept thinking about that team of mine," he says, and politely doesn't add "They fuck up so many things with me around. They'd probably blow up the entire planet if I left them to their own devices for five minutes." "Responsibility," he adds, and again politely doesn't say, "I have to keep them from killing us all." And then of course the Doctor neuters Jack's vortex manipulator. I think this is less because he doesn't want Jack going anywhere in time and space, and more because he doesn't want T'wood Three going anywhere in time and space. Christ, they're bad enough on one planet in one time. Also so people don't watch Torchwood and go ". . . why don't they just use the vortex manipulator to fix this shit?" And Jack wonders about getting older. He must age really slowly cause you know, he lived 120 years on Earth and only looks two years older than he was the last time we saw him. Funny, that.
And so Jack is the Face of Boe. This makes no sense at all. Rusty, put DOWN the crack pipe. It certainly explains how the Face went from "some guy the Ninth Doctor met at a party" to "the Tenth Doctor's best friend" in the course of three appearances. Also, if Jack is unkillable -- if even having all the life force sucked out of him by the Devil couldn't kill him -- then how could running out of gas/giving his life energy to open up New New York kill him? He's probably still there on the floor in the New New York Senate, constantly reviving, choking to death in the oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere and then dying again.
And then the Martha thing. AGGH AGGH AGGH AGGH AGGH. I know why Rusty wrote it this way -- this way Martha's not in the Christmas special, leaving room for a big-name star to be the guest companion, and then the last five minutes of the special is the Doctor's phone ringing because she's ready to be picked up. It's just awful. Contrary to all Rusty's talk, nothing was resolved as re: the unrequited love. He doesn't love her. She's still in love with him. She leaves because no matter how wonderful she is or how awesome, she will never ever be good enough to love. I suppose the only good thing was that she had enough self-esteem to walk instead of fawning over him hopelessly and hoping that maybe today would be the day when he finally realized. Which means I just spent a year falling in love with Martha Jones and watching the writers continually shit all over her FOR ABSOLUTELY NO REASON. Because she walked away with NOTHING. Oh, I'm sorry, the Doctor thanked her and gave her a heartfelt hug. Well that TOTALLY makes up for the two months spent doing hard manual labor and enduring constant insults as a maid in 1913 while he faffed about and lived the good life. That TOTALLY makes up for the God knows how long she spent working in a shop and supporting his lazy ass while he stayed home and fiddled with electronic bits in 1969. And that COMPLETELY makes up for the LONG, HARD YEAR SHE JUST SPENT CONTINUALLY RISKING HER ASS FOR HIM. For Christ's sake. She didn't even take the opportunity to march over, lay a sizzling kiss on him and THEN walk away. No, she wimps out and picks him on the cheek.
Oh and then the fucking Titanic thing. The Doctor's reaction -- "WHAT." -- totally mirrors my own. I suppose this may be the TARDIS's way of showing him how pissed off she is that he just let Martha and all her awesomeness walk away. I'm not quite sure how getting all smashed up figures into the plan, I'm just looking at the part where she flew him into the path of a really huge ocean liner so he could get squished. Beyond that, IT MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE. It was the NINTH DOCTOR who was aboard the Titanic, he SAID SO. So unless they've talked Chris Eccleston into coming back for a guest spot and they're doing a The N Doctors sort of thing, this is another case of Rusty completely contradicting established canon just because he's Rusty and he can.
I can live with no Martha in the Christmas special. But if there's no Martha in Series 4, I am flying to Cardiff and putting a brick through Rusty's window. I will do it, I swear. YOU HEAR THAT, DAVIES? MARTHA BETTER BE COMING BACK OR YOU WON'T HAVE ANY WINDOWS LEFT!
Specs count: Whatever.
Saxon count: Fucking whatever.
Next week Christmas: Titanic. THE FUCKING TITANIC.
Just . . . what the fuck, Rusty. You need to talk to Aaron Sorkin about the Right Way to write when high on crack. And possibly ask him where he gets his. That fucking Welsh shit you're smoking just is not working.
Yeah, okay, so the first part wasn't that bad if a bit cliched. Phenomenal cosmic powers, and the best the Master can do is putting the Doctor in the doghouse, enslaving the Jones family and chaining Jack up? The whole "put a guy on a chain and treat him like a dog until he goes insane and thinks he's actually a dog" has been done before by people far more evil than the Master. Plus, the Master hits Lucy. Good God. How much more cliche can you get? Try harder next time, Rusty, I think you forgot a couple. On the other hand, Badass!Martha, cute doctor guy, I'm almost willing to call it a wash. But not quite.
But then it just started to get stupid. Escape attempt? Not bad, but I knew it was doomed when I looked at the time elapsed on the scrubber bar. And then the Doctor turned into fucking Dobby the House-Elf. And then it turned out the idea I hoped really, really wasn't the case ended up being the case -- the only part I was wrong about was that Utopia wasn't a trap built by the Master. Of course, I think pretty much everyone guessed that the Toclafane were the humans that went to Utopia.
So a gun that kills Time Lords dead. I'd rather have had that than what we got. But, er, if the gun was just a decoy, then where the hell did it come from? And then, to paraphrase everyone on the Internet, I hate that the plan is that Martha gets everyone to believe in the Doctor on the Doctor's say-so. For one, it takes away from all the hard work she put in for that plan. He sits up on Valiant, doing what? Being old and ignoring the Master when he taunts him. And she is down there busting her ass, criss-crossing the globe and risking death every freakin' day but in the end she's just doing what she's told, the grunt work, he's the one that gets to be the Magical Flying Jesus.
And about that. His big plan is to become fucking Magical Flying Jesus? Rusty, you are fucking SHITTING me. We spend a whole year on "thinking you're a god is bad, you need someone to stop you" and then oh no, in the end it turns out that's okay, he actually BECOMES a god so it's all justified. We even get fucking crucifixion imagery and then, oh and then of course there's the kicker: The Doctor: "You know what I'm going to say." Me: "I forgive you." The Doctor: " . . . I forgive you." AGGH AGGH AGGH you want to toss in a "He knows not what he does" while you're at it there Rusty?
*bashes head against keyboard*
And as others have astutely pointed out, the whole Magical Flying Jesus thing isn't even what saved the world. JACK is the one who saved the world by taking a machine gun to the Paradox Machine. So the Doctor got to be a god and didn't even really DO ANYTHING.
Death of the Master. Now that was well-done. Tennant and Simm were just giving it all they had. And the whole bit with the Doctor demanding that the Master live, dammit, was fab -- first, it was wonderfully slashtastic (hooray for hoyay!) and second I can totally believe that the Doctor is so desperate just to have another Gallifreyan alive, even if he is completely evil and keeps trying to kill lots of people, that he would beg the Master to stay alive. Although it's a little pathetic that he tries to convince the Master to stay by in essence saying, "Remember that time you tried to kill a bunch of people and I stopped you? Oh, and remember that time you tried to kill a bunch of people and I stopped you?"
But of course, silly Doctor. The Master never stays dead. Not even things like running out of regenerations, being dropped in a black hole and sucked into the Eye of Harmony can kill the Master. I was sort of hoping that when Lucy shot the Master it was because she'd had enough of the abuse and was taking her chance to kill him -- but I think the last shot of the woman's hand picking up the ring makes it clear it was some sort of worst-case scenario escape plan he had cooked up and had her follow. They spent an awful lot of time on Lucy's hands and her long red fingernails earlier in the episode. If you show a gun on stage in the first act, it had better be fired in the third.
Of course Jack goes back to T'wood Three, even though the Doctor is suddenly totally over his racism. This must be his way of saying "oh, by the way, thanks for technically saving the world, even though in the grand scheme of things all you really did was take a machine gun to my TARDIS and Martha was way awesomer than you but I can never acknowledge this fact because she is not Rose." Jack is probably wise to decline, though. "I kept thinking about that team of mine," he says, and politely doesn't add "They fuck up so many things with me around. They'd probably blow up the entire planet if I left them to their own devices for five minutes." "Responsibility," he adds, and again politely doesn't say, "I have to keep them from killing us all." And then of course the Doctor neuters Jack's vortex manipulator. I think this is less because he doesn't want Jack going anywhere in time and space, and more because he doesn't want T'wood Three going anywhere in time and space. Christ, they're bad enough on one planet in one time. Also so people don't watch Torchwood and go ". . . why don't they just use the vortex manipulator to fix this shit?" And Jack wonders about getting older. He must age really slowly cause you know, he lived 120 years on Earth and only looks two years older than he was the last time we saw him. Funny, that.
And so Jack is the Face of Boe. This makes no sense at all. Rusty, put DOWN the crack pipe. It certainly explains how the Face went from "some guy the Ninth Doctor met at a party" to "the Tenth Doctor's best friend" in the course of three appearances. Also, if Jack is unkillable -- if even having all the life force sucked out of him by the Devil couldn't kill him -- then how could running out of gas/giving his life energy to open up New New York kill him? He's probably still there on the floor in the New New York Senate, constantly reviving, choking to death in the oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere and then dying again.
And then the Martha thing. AGGH AGGH AGGH AGGH AGGH. I know why Rusty wrote it this way -- this way Martha's not in the Christmas special, leaving room for a big-name star to be the guest companion, and then the last five minutes of the special is the Doctor's phone ringing because she's ready to be picked up. It's just awful. Contrary to all Rusty's talk, nothing was resolved as re: the unrequited love. He doesn't love her. She's still in love with him. She leaves because no matter how wonderful she is or how awesome, she will never ever be good enough to love. I suppose the only good thing was that she had enough self-esteem to walk instead of fawning over him hopelessly and hoping that maybe today would be the day when he finally realized. Which means I just spent a year falling in love with Martha Jones and watching the writers continually shit all over her FOR ABSOLUTELY NO REASON. Because she walked away with NOTHING. Oh, I'm sorry, the Doctor thanked her and gave her a heartfelt hug. Well that TOTALLY makes up for the two months spent doing hard manual labor and enduring constant insults as a maid in 1913 while he faffed about and lived the good life. That TOTALLY makes up for the God knows how long she spent working in a shop and supporting his lazy ass while he stayed home and fiddled with electronic bits in 1969. And that COMPLETELY makes up for the LONG, HARD YEAR SHE JUST SPENT CONTINUALLY RISKING HER ASS FOR HIM. For Christ's sake. She didn't even take the opportunity to march over, lay a sizzling kiss on him and THEN walk away. No, she wimps out and picks him on the cheek.
Oh and then the fucking Titanic thing. The Doctor's reaction -- "WHAT." -- totally mirrors my own. I suppose this may be the TARDIS's way of showing him how pissed off she is that he just let Martha and all her awesomeness walk away. I'm not quite sure how getting all smashed up figures into the plan, I'm just looking at the part where she flew him into the path of a really huge ocean liner so he could get squished. Beyond that, IT MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE. It was the NINTH DOCTOR who was aboard the Titanic, he SAID SO. So unless they've talked Chris Eccleston into coming back for a guest spot and they're doing a The N Doctors sort of thing, this is another case of Rusty completely contradicting established canon just because he's Rusty and he can.
I can live with no Martha in the Christmas special. But if there's no Martha in Series 4, I am flying to Cardiff and putting a brick through Rusty's window. I will do it, I swear. YOU HEAR THAT, DAVIES? MARTHA BETTER BE COMING BACK OR YOU WON'T HAVE ANY WINDOWS LEFT!
Specs count: Whatever.
Saxon count: Fucking whatever.
Next week Christmas: Titanic. THE FUCKING TITANIC.