Journey's End.
*sigh*
Rusty, Rusty, Rusty...another end of season finale, his last one, and thoughts below.
Fecking hell Rusty, you just never give me the chance to like you. It's the same old same old all the time with you. The Godly Doctor making decisions at both macro and micro level for all humans, and never having to face the consequences when he both interferes and gets things patently wrong like Harriet in Christmas Invasion, or does something truly horrible to someone like Ursula in Love & Monsters, or completely disregards the wishes of someone he purports to care about like Donna, here. In Joss-speak, The Doctor is fast becoming the Buffy of the Universe, when he should be Angel reaping what he sows.
I'm not someone who has ever put stock in the 'racism' charges that people like to throw at Rusty over people like Martha (who of all the companions so far in the New Show is the only one to have made her OWN life and got away from him relatively unscathed!) but I am beginning to be a wee bit suspicious on some of the charges of sexism. The blokes get the powers...the girls get to sacrifice themselves, and their lives for said blokes and/or get told how to live their lives by said blokes. Doctor!Donna Clone boy was also half human, half timelord, with one heart, one life to live...like sand through the hourglass these are the days of his life etc...how come his poor little human brain didn't implode then eh? Cuz blokes can handle the complex gobbledygoodky techy wechy stuff that girly brains can't eh?
I don't care that it means my favourite companion of NuWho (and the best actress the show has seen so far since it's return) still has an outside chance of coming back. Nor do I effing care that they'll say he was doing it for X,Y and Z reasons of caring for her. She asked him not to send her back...she bloody BEGGED him! And he did it anyway. Cuz Doctor knows best. After all the you USE humans Doctor. You treat them like your pawns. With all the flashbacks and blah de blah de blah, you're brilliant, and you're brilliant, but you know what...you don't get to decided your own fate. I do!!
But beyond ALL of that. Like the Chewbacca defence. IT MAKES NO SENSE! Even within your own writing. Ten when he first found out what and who she was, was as bouncy as Doctor!Donna Clone, and then changes his tune 10 minutes later to doom and gloom. But beyond that...Rusty you moron, you had Rose SWALLOW a freakin' Time Vortex. Something that not even a Time Lord could do and live. And Nine sucked it out of her...right out of her, with the loss of ONLY HER MEMORIES OF BEING BAD WOLF...to save her life. Now c'mon...in the face of that, don't try and tell me he couldn't have sucked out the Donna's memories that were HIS memories and just returned her to herself at the moment she touched the bloody hand?! WHAT UTTER BOLLOCKS.
As was the freaking regeneration thing in the first place. I mean...what? I don't need to bloody regenerate because I AM TEH DOCTAH! Whu??! Screw you Rusty...just screw you. He is the Doctor. He is a Time Lord. The same as all the other bloody Timelords when it comes to regeneration. You mean to tell me that ALLLLLL those years the Master had been looking for a way to stave off death and not use up his final lives, all he had to do was cut off a bit of himself and use it to create a mini 'crisis' to channel the power into? Regeneration is not an effing toy to be played with by you for laffs and giggles. He can't just bloody turn around and say, oh right, I've been shot but you know what, I've decided I'm not going to die! It's like an 8 year old kid having a freaking pout on the playground because his super powers have been bested by someother kids superpowers and deciding to change the rules! Cartmanesque "Screw you guys I'm goin' home" moment.
Once again it's a God/Doc moment and I freaking hate those. I really do.
The charges levelled against Doctor!Donna Clone boy by the Doctor were bogus in the extreme. He's dangerous, he has to stay here with you, Rose. Doctor you comitted a bit of genocide (AGAIN) yourself in Runaway Bride as you'll recall. You couldn't be arsed to teach him yourself eh? No. Suppose not, you probably don't like yourself too much do you? And probably don't fancy competing against yourself, or fighting over the brown suit and hair product in the mornings.
Not that that the Clone staying was ever an option when there was a Mary Sue in need of a happy ending with her twu wuv. Only it wasn't. Either a Happy Ending or her Twu Wuv. Another fine example of what happens when you try to have your cake and eat it too as a writer. You fail abysmally. Rose came off as a shallow, un-evolved character never moving on, never having her own life save to use it to rip universe destroying holes in the fabric of reality to get back to the Doctor, despite numerous warnings. Only it's not the Doctor she loves it's Ten-ant Doctor, having a complete and utter meltdown at the mere idea of his changing into James Nesbitt or Damien Lewis or Daniel Radcliffe...okay i could forgive her that last one, but for godsakes woman, shallow much? And her depth shrank a few more levels on that bloody beach when she snogged the one that told her he loved her...oh dear...let's add in a 'desperate much' shall we? Though at least she had the good sense to look a bit 'hang on...I'm not sure I'm getting a good deal here', as he TARDIS-ed off without so much as a backward glance at her. Saddled with a genocidal, blood and guts Doctor (which erm was a bit harsh on Nine as descriptions go to be honest!) who is HALF Donna with all her traits...heheheheheheh...good enough for her I reckon.
These were my big bugbears and big they are.
That said it was by no means all bad. For me this was STILL a better effort than the appallingness of last years Last Of The Time Lords with Dobby Doctor and Jesus Doctor and oh ick. The truly infuriating thing about Rusty Davies is that he has the capability to write both seriously good, tense and fun things...but undermines it with his shite. And there were good things in this.
Good pacing, apart from the last ten minutes.
The Cribbins! How I love Wilf...and if they ever DO have Donna back I hope they do it soon enough so that he will still be about to be a part of it, and an integral one at that!
Catherine Tate. Catherine Tate. Catherine Tate. It has been so very gratifying to me this season to see the huge number of doubters/haters be utterly won over by her as I honestly thought they would. She was funny (threw in a top notch Tennant impersonation), dramatic and heartbreaking tonight and with all due respect to Freema and Billy (and I don't mind Billy despite my dislike for how Rose turned out) she is head and shoulders above them as an actress...and proof positive again, that David Tennant works better with a more mature person at his side, and that the Doctor needs someone to smack him, verbally if not literally every now and again. Snark between the Doctor and his companion is a MUST! I will miss Donna tremendously, her presence gave this entire season and the Tenth Doctor a lift. She is up there with Ace and Sarah in my all time list, and someday I hope they have her back. (Course I've been wanting Ace back for ages too so shan't hold my breath...) :(
The Davros and Sarah Jane exchange was wonderful for old skool fans, and should send New Skool fans scampering for Tom Baker adventures NOW if they have any sense at all! Sarah Jane is simply Sarah Jane. The Queen of Companions. There's always just been something so immensely likeable about her. Maybe because she's so ordinary. She's not the bravest, or the brightest or the prettiest any kind of 'est', she's just, Sarah Jane, very human and for the most part very levelheaded. And it's a shame that her little reminder to Ten outside the TARDIS before she headed home to Luke, should go unheeded in the Doctor alone in the rain coda. I'm sorry Doctor, you heard what she said. You have a freaking family, one you've made...you don't have to be alone, you choose it, you lose a million emo credibility points for not popping off to Sarah Janes for some tea and sympathy after leaving Donna. Your own fault mate.
Mickey and Jackie. :) I'm so pleased Mickey is back, and that in doing so they continued to showcase the deep friendship and affection he and Jackie had for each other. At least one Tyler woman treated him properly. The exchanges between him and Jack were short but perfect. Am keeping my fingers crossed still that he ends up at Torchwood. C'mon Jack do us a favour and up the quotient of hot guys even more. Besides we need a bloke whose NOT into you, and can snark at you, to take the place of poor Owen, plus Mickey is quite nifty with the computers, tech and guns these days, and there's an empty seat where poor Tosh used to be.
Speaking of Torchwood, the convenient Tosh inspired (courtesy of Illyria from Angel it looked like) 'Timelock' save for Gwen and Ianto apart, I thoroughly enjoyed having the TW pair there, and that Ten/Rose exchange over Gwen/Gwyneth was one of the few moments of them together when I remembered that once upon a time I used to like Rose. I hope they're clever about it and have the ending of Who segue into the new truncated (boo) season 3 of Torchwood. And a word about John Barrowman. It's amazing to me that a man who is everywhere and IRRITATES the living crap out of me as himself, can be so likeable as this character to the point I don't even connect Barrowman with Harkness anymore.
Davros...okay he got a little 'Welcome to my Moon Base' Doctor Evil and slipped into his meglomaniacal MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH laugh a bit too easily, but Julian Bleach was terrific from start to finish. Though when is Davros going to get it into his wrinkly bald head that creating a MASTER Race that thinks they're better than EVERY other Race means that sooner or later they're going to think they are better than YOU?!
Right it's late I'm sure there's more but that's all I'm putting together for now...count your blessings ;)
Rusty, Rusty, Rusty...another end of season finale, his last one, and thoughts below.
Fecking hell Rusty, you just never give me the chance to like you. It's the same old same old all the time with you. The Godly Doctor making decisions at both macro and micro level for all humans, and never having to face the consequences when he both interferes and gets things patently wrong like Harriet in Christmas Invasion, or does something truly horrible to someone like Ursula in Love & Monsters, or completely disregards the wishes of someone he purports to care about like Donna, here. In Joss-speak, The Doctor is fast becoming the Buffy of the Universe, when he should be Angel reaping what he sows.
I'm not someone who has ever put stock in the 'racism' charges that people like to throw at Rusty over people like Martha (who of all the companions so far in the New Show is the only one to have made her OWN life and got away from him relatively unscathed!) but I am beginning to be a wee bit suspicious on some of the charges of sexism. The blokes get the powers...the girls get to sacrifice themselves, and their lives for said blokes and/or get told how to live their lives by said blokes. Doctor!Donna Clone boy was also half human, half timelord, with one heart, one life to live...like sand through the hourglass these are the days of his life etc...how come his poor little human brain didn't implode then eh? Cuz blokes can handle the complex gobbledygoodky techy wechy stuff that girly brains can't eh?
I don't care that it means my favourite companion of NuWho (and the best actress the show has seen so far since it's return) still has an outside chance of coming back. Nor do I effing care that they'll say he was doing it for X,Y and Z reasons of caring for her. She asked him not to send her back...she bloody BEGGED him! And he did it anyway. Cuz Doctor knows best. After all the you USE humans Doctor. You treat them like your pawns. With all the flashbacks and blah de blah de blah, you're brilliant, and you're brilliant, but you know what...you don't get to decided your own fate. I do!!
But beyond ALL of that. Like the Chewbacca defence. IT MAKES NO SENSE! Even within your own writing. Ten when he first found out what and who she was, was as bouncy as Doctor!Donna Clone, and then changes his tune 10 minutes later to doom and gloom. But beyond that...Rusty you moron, you had Rose SWALLOW a freakin' Time Vortex. Something that not even a Time Lord could do and live. And Nine sucked it out of her...right out of her, with the loss of ONLY HER MEMORIES OF BEING BAD WOLF...to save her life. Now c'mon...in the face of that, don't try and tell me he couldn't have sucked out the Donna's memories that were HIS memories and just returned her to herself at the moment she touched the bloody hand?! WHAT UTTER BOLLOCKS.
As was the freaking regeneration thing in the first place. I mean...what? I don't need to bloody regenerate because I AM TEH DOCTAH! Whu??! Screw you Rusty...just screw you. He is the Doctor. He is a Time Lord. The same as all the other bloody Timelords when it comes to regeneration. You mean to tell me that ALLLLLL those years the Master had been looking for a way to stave off death and not use up his final lives, all he had to do was cut off a bit of himself and use it to create a mini 'crisis' to channel the power into? Regeneration is not an effing toy to be played with by you for laffs and giggles. He can't just bloody turn around and say, oh right, I've been shot but you know what, I've decided I'm not going to die! It's like an 8 year old kid having a freaking pout on the playground because his super powers have been bested by someother kids superpowers and deciding to change the rules! Cartmanesque "Screw you guys I'm goin' home" moment.
Once again it's a God/Doc moment and I freaking hate those. I really do.
The charges levelled against Doctor!Donna Clone boy by the Doctor were bogus in the extreme. He's dangerous, he has to stay here with you, Rose. Doctor you comitted a bit of genocide (AGAIN) yourself in Runaway Bride as you'll recall. You couldn't be arsed to teach him yourself eh? No. Suppose not, you probably don't like yourself too much do you? And probably don't fancy competing against yourself, or fighting over the brown suit and hair product in the mornings.
Not that that the Clone staying was ever an option when there was a Mary Sue in need of a happy ending with her twu wuv. Only it wasn't. Either a Happy Ending or her Twu Wuv. Another fine example of what happens when you try to have your cake and eat it too as a writer. You fail abysmally. Rose came off as a shallow, un-evolved character never moving on, never having her own life save to use it to rip universe destroying holes in the fabric of reality to get back to the Doctor, despite numerous warnings. Only it's not the Doctor she loves it's Ten-ant Doctor, having a complete and utter meltdown at the mere idea of his changing into James Nesbitt or Damien Lewis or Daniel Radcliffe...okay i could forgive her that last one, but for godsakes woman, shallow much? And her depth shrank a few more levels on that bloody beach when she snogged the one that told her he loved her...oh dear...let's add in a 'desperate much' shall we? Though at least she had the good sense to look a bit 'hang on...I'm not sure I'm getting a good deal here', as he TARDIS-ed off without so much as a backward glance at her. Saddled with a genocidal, blood and guts Doctor (which erm was a bit harsh on Nine as descriptions go to be honest!) who is HALF Donna with all her traits...heheheheheheh...good enough for her I reckon.
These were my big bugbears and big they are.
That said it was by no means all bad. For me this was STILL a better effort than the appallingness of last years Last Of The Time Lords with Dobby Doctor and Jesus Doctor and oh ick. The truly infuriating thing about Rusty Davies is that he has the capability to write both seriously good, tense and fun things...but undermines it with his shite. And there were good things in this.
Good pacing, apart from the last ten minutes.
The Cribbins! How I love Wilf...and if they ever DO have Donna back I hope they do it soon enough so that he will still be about to be a part of it, and an integral one at that!
Catherine Tate. Catherine Tate. Catherine Tate. It has been so very gratifying to me this season to see the huge number of doubters/haters be utterly won over by her as I honestly thought they would. She was funny (threw in a top notch Tennant impersonation), dramatic and heartbreaking tonight and with all due respect to Freema and Billy (and I don't mind Billy despite my dislike for how Rose turned out) she is head and shoulders above them as an actress...and proof positive again, that David Tennant works better with a more mature person at his side, and that the Doctor needs someone to smack him, verbally if not literally every now and again. Snark between the Doctor and his companion is a MUST! I will miss Donna tremendously, her presence gave this entire season and the Tenth Doctor a lift. She is up there with Ace and Sarah in my all time list, and someday I hope they have her back. (Course I've been wanting Ace back for ages too so shan't hold my breath...) :(
The Davros and Sarah Jane exchange was wonderful for old skool fans, and should send New Skool fans scampering for Tom Baker adventures NOW if they have any sense at all! Sarah Jane is simply Sarah Jane. The Queen of Companions. There's always just been something so immensely likeable about her. Maybe because she's so ordinary. She's not the bravest, or the brightest or the prettiest any kind of 'est', she's just, Sarah Jane, very human and for the most part very levelheaded. And it's a shame that her little reminder to Ten outside the TARDIS before she headed home to Luke, should go unheeded in the Doctor alone in the rain coda. I'm sorry Doctor, you heard what she said. You have a freaking family, one you've made...you don't have to be alone, you choose it, you lose a million emo credibility points for not popping off to Sarah Janes for some tea and sympathy after leaving Donna. Your own fault mate.
Mickey and Jackie. :) I'm so pleased Mickey is back, and that in doing so they continued to showcase the deep friendship and affection he and Jackie had for each other. At least one Tyler woman treated him properly. The exchanges between him and Jack were short but perfect. Am keeping my fingers crossed still that he ends up at Torchwood. C'mon Jack do us a favour and up the quotient of hot guys even more. Besides we need a bloke whose NOT into you, and can snark at you, to take the place of poor Owen, plus Mickey is quite nifty with the computers, tech and guns these days, and there's an empty seat where poor Tosh used to be.
Speaking of Torchwood, the convenient Tosh inspired (courtesy of Illyria from Angel it looked like) 'Timelock' save for Gwen and Ianto apart, I thoroughly enjoyed having the TW pair there, and that Ten/Rose exchange over Gwen/Gwyneth was one of the few moments of them together when I remembered that once upon a time I used to like Rose. I hope they're clever about it and have the ending of Who segue into the new truncated (boo) season 3 of Torchwood. And a word about John Barrowman. It's amazing to me that a man who is everywhere and IRRITATES the living crap out of me as himself, can be so likeable as this character to the point I don't even connect Barrowman with Harkness anymore.
Davros...okay he got a little 'Welcome to my Moon Base' Doctor Evil and slipped into his meglomaniacal MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH laugh a bit too easily, but Julian Bleach was terrific from start to finish. Though when is Davros going to get it into his wrinkly bald head that creating a MASTER Race that thinks they're better than EVERY other Race means that sooner or later they're going to think they are better than YOU?!
Right it's late I'm sure there's more but that's all I'm putting together for now...count your blessings ;)