Waters of Mars
Yeah, you should watch it. The Doctor is back before we say goodbye to the Ten(nant).
It's nice to think that in 2059, gay marriage will be a non-issue in Russia.
I really don't know what else to say beyond the fact that it's been too long since the last Doctor Who episode.
I did like the break from form: the Doctor starts off on this riff about "Oh, there are some moments in time" that even he shouldn't change or mess up. And then he proceeds to try and back away from the oncoming nightmare. There are hints and long shots of serious!Tennant running away from death and destruction going on around him.
And then, a change. The Doctor interferes; he becomes involved. When isn't he involved in the time or place where he ends up?
This is a little different, though -- he purposefully gets involved. Instead of marveling at the historical figure that's been trotted out this time in new Who (Shakespeare, Dickens, or the captain of the Mars mission), he tries to change their narrative. He tries to change the tragic ending that the captain is doomed to. He becomes Time Lord Victorious, which admittedly sounds pretty sexy. He is the Time Lord - he's the one who's supposed to rule Time, not the other way around!
And naturally, in the RTD world, this means he's crossed all sorts of bounds (who is he to judge what should and shouldn't live? Who counts as an important figure?) and he gets shot down pretty quickly.
I'm glad that unlike with Torchwood, Who kept to the relatively narrow path. The last Torchwood special featured a fantastic Peter Capaldi who seemed, if anything, to gain audience sympathy for "following orders" when ordered to kill millions of children. I thought we had gone down that path already.
For all this moral discussion of right and wrong, the Doctor reminds us that there are better things out there. The Mars captain was seen by a Dalek (rather mysteriously) during the invasion, which after seeing her, went back into space. Despite losing her parents to the Daleks, the captain's true motivation for pioneering the Mars mission is to simply explore. Revenge isn't a productive emotion for her.
And on that note, I thought that part of the episode dovetailed nicely with this clip from Friday's TRMS, about the NASA mission to the moon (an interview with Bill Nye, that science guy!)
It's nice to think that in 2059, gay marriage will be a non-issue in Russia.
I really don't know what else to say beyond the fact that it's been too long since the last Doctor Who episode.
I did like the break from form: the Doctor starts off on this riff about "Oh, there are some moments in time" that even he shouldn't change or mess up. And then he proceeds to try and back away from the oncoming nightmare. There are hints and long shots of serious!Tennant running away from death and destruction going on around him.
And then, a change. The Doctor interferes; he becomes involved. When isn't he involved in the time or place where he ends up?
This is a little different, though -- he purposefully gets involved. Instead of marveling at the historical figure that's been trotted out this time in new Who (Shakespeare, Dickens, or the captain of the Mars mission), he tries to change their narrative. He tries to change the tragic ending that the captain is doomed to. He becomes Time Lord Victorious, which admittedly sounds pretty sexy. He is the Time Lord - he's the one who's supposed to rule Time, not the other way around!
And naturally, in the RTD world, this means he's crossed all sorts of bounds (who is he to judge what should and shouldn't live? Who counts as an important figure?) and he gets shot down pretty quickly.
I'm glad that unlike with Torchwood, Who kept to the relatively narrow path. The last Torchwood special featured a fantastic Peter Capaldi who seemed, if anything, to gain audience sympathy for "following orders" when ordered to kill millions of children. I thought we had gone down that path already.
For all this moral discussion of right and wrong, the Doctor reminds us that there are better things out there. The Mars captain was seen by a Dalek (rather mysteriously) during the invasion, which after seeing her, went back into space. Despite losing her parents to the Daleks, the captain's true motivation for pioneering the Mars mission is to simply explore. Revenge isn't a productive emotion for her.
And on that note, I thought that part of the episode dovetailed nicely with this clip from Friday's TRMS, about the NASA mission to the moon (an interview with Bill Nye, that science guy!)