time's up

[rivendellrose]

Unsurprisingly, there are spoilers.

In no particular order:

1. How the hell did we end up with Martha married to Mickey? Not that I'm not happy for them, because they both looked very lovely and happy and wonderful, and... and... um... what? I know I bitched a lot about her being married to the-amazing-nonexistent-Tom-Milligan, but... so, I don't know if I made this entirely clear, but my complaint was that apparently marrying her off solved everything, not that I didn't like Tom. I liked Tom! I liked Martha and Tom! But I liked them in the alternate Master-universe, where they actually knew each other, and considered them marrying in this world to be bizarre because they had hardly even met when they were all of a sudden engaged. It was weird. But now? Now? Now we apparently have Martha ditching Tom and running off immediately to marry Mickey, whom she'd also just met (in Journey's End last year)? How is that supposed to make it better?

...On the other hand, yay, Martha! And yay Mickey! Yay! Also, Noel looked great with the beard! And Freema's braids were very cute! But WTF was that ever random! I suspect what happened here was that they initially intended to get Tom Milligan, but were not able to get the actor on short notice (or at all, or whatever), and therefore decided that, well, they'd just marry her to Mickey instead! Because all that matters is that the girl GETS MARRIED because that means she's HAPPY. HAPPY, DAMN IT, HAPPY.

Which brings me to my next point:

2. Donna. Donna, Donna, Donna - how happy was I to see Donna last week, and to see her again this week? How glad was I to see that the Doctor was going back to Donna's place to give her back her... hang on... no, he was just going to drop off Wilf. But he said he'd see Wilf again, so he's obviously got a plan to give Donna back her memories! It's going to have something to do with regeneration and the meta-crisis, and it will fix... er... her wedding. HER WEDDING. No, no, no, no, no. See, as many times as people say "oh, Doctor Who was so sexist in the past, all the companions got left behind and it was horrible," this is what bothers me about Doctor Who re: the treatment and abandonment of companions, and it's all fricking Russell T Fricking Davies all the way. It's okay if we wipe someone's memory or make them walk the Earth for a year trying to save the world, because they get married in the end, and that's all a woman could possibly want, isn't it? Isn't it? God forbid any of us have other desires or other things we might want in life, other than a ring and a white dress. And, apparently, a lottery ticket.

3. Luke and Sarah Jane! Two people I was actually not at all sorry to see or sorry with how they handled. Yay! And the Doctor taught Luke not to walk out in front of cars while talking on his freaking mobile! Good job, Doctor. Luke should obviously go back and watch the SPLINK video.

4. Jack. Oh, Jack, you intergalactic slut. I love you. I have no earthly clue why we got "My Angel Put the Devil in Me" in this scene, but I was at least happy to get that song instead of the one from Voyage of the Damned, because as much as I like that song, it brings back bad memories (aka, memories of the episode). And Alonso! I wanted very much for the Doctor to keep him, way back in Voyage of the Damned, and I was pissed off that the Doctor didn't. Apparently Jack did. So I am happy for them. However - is it just me, or can any of you not believe for a minute that Jack would see the Doctor from across a smoky 51st century bar and not leap over the bar and snog him? WTF, Jack? What kind of greeting was that? It's okay, we love you anyway. ♥

5. Time Lords. Evil Time Lords. Gallifrey busting up in the sky... which really just made me think that they were reusing special effects from last year, but whatever. And that guy was supposed to be Rassilon? Is that what we were supposed to get out of that? I suppose the Time Lords resurrected him so that they could... have him... be president... when Romana told them all to go to hell because she wasn't going to do some stupid thing with... something? I honestly didn't catch half of what was said in these scenes because it all seemed less like technobabble or anything like that and more like just random words thrown together and spoken very quickly in the hopes that we wouldn't catch onto them and realize that they sounded idiotic. And what was with the two Time Lords who wouldn't uncover their eyes? Or the one, I should say, since one of them finally did and she was... oh, wait, THEY NEVER TOLD US WHO SHE WAS. I thought she was Romana, originally, and then I thought she was Susan because of something she said about being left behind, but apparently the actress (Claire something?) said she was - and I cannot express how much I dislike this idea - the Doctor's mother? WTF? And if she was, then WHY DIDN'T THEY TELL US THAT?

6. The Master. I continue to find the entire plot with the Master in these episodes utterly idiotic. Why would the Master want to make a whole planet of himself? Why? How would that help him? If they're all him, you cannot tell me that they wouldn't all be going "screw listening to that guy, I'm the fucking Master! I don't obey anybody!" There were some very good bits with him and Tennant, in the few moments where we were actually allowed to have dialogue and acting and not just scenery-chewing idiocy, but for the most part, this was a big "meh." And the bit with the drums? Hang on, so it's a signal that the Time Lords put into the Untempered Schism back when the Master was a kid so that it would exist in his head before the Time War, so that he could carry it out of the Time Lock, so that they could... send a diamond through it... so that the Master could use the diamond to, um... hang on... amplify the signal... in his head... back to them... so that they could, um... follow it... through the Time Lock... to Earth? Wait, what? Davies' plot solutions usually make about 0 sense to begin with, but this one was a real prize-winning piece of drivel. A personal best on the "shit solution to a stupid problem" front, there, Davies. Congratulations. We all knew you could beat your old score.

I have to add here that during the whole "Which one is he going to shoot?!" struggle, they kept making a... shooting-a-blank or maybe a cocking-a-gun sound effect every time the Doctor turned. Now, I don't know a damned thing about guns, but I sure as hell know they don't make a noise when you turn your body. A star for idiocy to the sound technician, and to Russell T Dumbass for doing that. Also, that was an exceptionally pointless and annoying scene to begin with, and I disliked everything about it except watching Simm!Master refuse to believe (though he did doubt!) that the Doctor could shoot him, even to save the world. Oh, their love. Their love is so... I don't know, but I love it.

Rose came back. And Jackie. And d'you know what, it wasn't nearly as shit as I'd been afraid it would be because it wasn't current Rose. It was past!Rose. And I liked past!Rose. She was fun. And it was good to have her back for a minute.

I admit it, I got all squeeful over whats-her-name, the daughter (granddaughter?) of the woman from "Human Nature"/"Family of Blood." Those were gorgeous, beautiful episodes, and I was very happy to see the actress again and get that little touch back to that old episode. Nice bit, even if a bit hokey.

The regeneration fake-out... eugh. I could have done without them trying to make me hate the Doctor right before pretending to kill him. Big "Meh" on that. I did go into full "oh, no - no, no, no, no" mode at the realization that Wilf was going to (accidentally) cause the Doctor's death, but the Doctor's whole rant there seemed a bit much for me - actually, quite cruel. Not a fun thing to see in the Doctor, but it's there, I suppose, so... whatever.

I am a bit peeved about them jossing all my concepts of the Time War, but, again, whatever. I refuse to accept almost anything that happened in this episode, so it's going to be an easy one for me to just pretend that it didn't happen.

What else? Ummmmmm.

Oh yeah. Regeneration.

I admit, the first time we thought he regenerated, I wanted to cover my eyes. I didn't want to see Matt Smith. At all. I still don't. I'm still sort of pretending that didn't happen, honestly, but... I guess... it wasn't as bad as it could have been? And we've blown up the inside of the Tardis, okay, whatever. Time for a change, I get it. You know, nobody ever had to blow up the inside of the Tardis just to redesign it before - I kind of liked the idea that the Doctor just sometimes got bored and changed it, or that the Tardis even did it herself. But, as usual, whatever. Whatever, whatever, whatever. That does seem to be the theme for this review.

In short... it wasn't as bad as I'd expected it to be, but it did not redeem itself as much as I'd hoped. All I can say now is...

HAPPY END-OF-RUSSELL-DAVIES-RUN, EVERYBODY!!! We've done it! We've survived! And soon we'll get a whole new production team who will hopefully not have quite so many horrifyingly bad hideous habits and neuroses! ...I hope.

And goodbye, Tennant. Goodbye Ten. I'll miss you more than I could ever have imagined, back when I first saw the end of "Parting of the Ways" and was furious with you for replacing Eccleston/Nine. Granted, that feeling vanished in a wave of "OMG HE'S SO ADORABLE!" within two minutes of "The Christmas Invasion," and that's the way it's been ever since, but... I guess it's good, right now, for me to remember that in the beginning I didn't like Tennant either. Maybe Smith will turn out okay after all. My hopes are not terribly high, however. Half the fun of the David Tennant run as the Doctor was that we knew that everything we squeed over and got excited about as fans, Tennant was getting just as excited, also as a fan. I'm going to miss that. It's so fun to know that an actor is enjoying his part, and I think Tennant's passion and love for the part just glowed through him in every moment he was on the screen. So I'm really very sorry to see him go, and I'll miss him. &Hearts;

Comments

[toastedtea.livejournal.com]

The marriage thing... omg. That pissed me of SO MUCH. I had the same "OMG yay/OMG WTF" reaction to Mickey and Martha that you did, for much the same reasons. And Donna. Yes, wiping her mind, taking away everything she had achieved, all her personal growth and strength and reverting her right back to Square One ... that's all made up for by her getting married and being given a winning lottery ticket. Because, you know, that's all a woman wants, really; money and a husband.

*smashes RTD over the head with the lavender labrys of feminist ire*

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Yeeeeeah. At first, I was thrilled - Martha! I love Martha! And then Mickey! I like Mickey a lot, too, after that they've let him be something other than a whiny little jerk!

And then they had to go and ruin it. Because it couldn't possibly just be that they were friends. *Headdesk*

So yeah, bye-bye to RTD and his sexist idiocy!

[toastedtea.livejournal.com]

He did the same thing with Rose, when you think about it. Shuffled her off to an alternate timeline, with her very own (mostly) human Doctor to settle down and play house with.

I sooo want to see 10.5 come back, preferably saying "Yeah, Rose and me? Didn't work out. I wasn't the man she fell in love with, after all." He only has one heart, after all, and no TARDIS at all.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Yup, he did. And my personal canon is that 10.5 and Rose lasted about a month before they both went nuts from each other, and that 10.5 drove Rose crazy that whole time taking apart everything in the house and trying to build a TARDIS out of a laptop computer, a washing machine the toaster.

He might manage it, too, but I have a feeling that if we ever see him again, it might very well be in the context of a villain. Which would be... interesting, and potentially awesome if it was done well.

[toastedtea.livejournal.com]

10.5 drove Rose crazy that whole time taking apart everything in the house and trying to build a TARDIS out of a laptop computer, a washing machine the toaster.

Oh, god, yes! That's exactly the way I pictured it, too. &hearts

But I don't want him to come back and be a villain. I want him to come back and put Donna to rights somehow by taking back the Timelord parts of himself. Then he can go off and do whatever he wants.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

♥

I'd love to see that - it really would be the perfect way to handle both characters - but I have a feeling we won't be seeing much of Donna now that David Tennant's era is over - I'm not expecting a lot of overlap between the two production teams... and for the most part I can't say I'm sorry about that. In this case I am, but there are other things that I'll definitely be glad to see the back of forever. :P

[netgirl-y2k.livejournal.com]

I'm swithering over the whole Martha/Mickey thing, because on the one hand they were lovely in their one little scene, and Tom Milligan was always a little consolation prize-y for me, on the other hand, WHAT? If they couldn't have gotten Noel Clarke back would RTD just have married her off to someone else?

Likewise Donna, I thought her bloke Sean was lovely, but do you know what she could gave done with more than a winning lottery ticket? Her memories back and some bloody agency.

The Doctor's mother? I don't know what drugs RTD is on, but the street value must be incredible.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Me too. The charm of Tom Milligan in "Last of the Time Lords" was that he loved Martha and she loved him, and they'd bonded through their trials. He seemed like a great guy, and I was happy to see her call him at the end of the episode, and then hang up - like it was something she could go back to, maybe, at some distant time in the future and maybe have a date or something and see what happened. It was all very nice in my head. He didn't seem like a rebound then. But then, the very next time we see her, they're engaged! WTF! Total rebound, and Martha deserved so much better than that.

And now, whoops! Not Tom, she's married to Mickey! Which, huh? Mickey's a great guy, sure, but... wtf? And yeah, same with Sean - he seemed like a fine guy, but he was really nothing but RTD shorthand for "DONNA'S OK NOW, SHE'S GOT A MAN." Which, fuck you, RTD. Like you said, I'd much rather see her get her memory back and some agency in her own life.

As for the Doctor's mom, I refuse to believe in that. Absolutely. She was Susan, IMHO, and I will never let go of that.

[netgirl-y2k.livejournal.com]

That's why I'm not too worried about all that talk about Moff being misogynistic, after all how much worse can it possibly get?

For most of the episode I thought she was Romana, until that heartbreaking look between her and and Ten, and I just thought, she's Susan, she's his granddaughter.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what gives people that idea (I've heard it's interviews and stuff? I haven't read them...), but yeah... it's hard to imagine anything much worse than how RTD's been. :P

I did, too! It was the line about her being abandoned that did it for me - that was a total "ohmigod Susan" moment.

[seachanges.livejournal.com]

I thought she was his granddaughter for sure. And as far as I'm concerned, that's who she is.

[bluerosefairy.livejournal.com]

God, you said it.

I suspect what happened here was that they initially intended to get Tom Milligan, but were not able to get the actor on short notice (or at all, or whatever), and therefore decided that, well, they'd just marry her to Mickey instead! Because all that matters is that the girl GETS MARRIED because that means she's HAPPY. HAPPY, DAMN IT, HAPPY.

Yeah, I mean, I'm happy it's Mickey, because we actually know him and care about him and they're both very well-suited for each other, but dude, couldn't they have been dating or something? She doesn't have to be freaking married.

Donna. God, Donna. In many ways, I think she's the most tragic companion of all. She loses everything that's made her better, and her consolation prize is marriage to someone we don't know and a lottery ticket from her dad. Rusty, your Women Issues are showing.

However - is it just me, or can any of you not believe for a minute that Jack would see the Doctor from across a smoky 51st century bar and not leap over the bar and snog him?

Better question is, why wouldn't he leap over the bar and HIT HIM? Jack looks fresh off either the Valiant or Tosh-and-Owen or the 456, and all those times, the Doctor failed him. If I were Jack, I'd have knocked him out.

And what was with the two Time Lords who wouldn't uncover their eyes? Or the one, I should say, since one of them finally did and she was... oh, wait, THEY NEVER TOLD US WHO SHE WAS.

First off, my RAGE is up because they're both Time Ladies, not Time Lords, and they're completely silent. Faceless and voiceless and nameless. Secondly, the Lord President calls them the "Weeping Angels", though he doesn't say what their purpose is. I choose to think they had some psychic use that was downplayed in favor of Simm and Dalton shouting and throwing lightning at each other, and that the Woman in White was Susan.

I continue to find the entire plot with the Master in these episodes utterly idiotic. Why would the Master want to make a whole planet of himself? Why? How would that help him?

The cloning was the most idiotic thing ever. I wish Rusty had just kept a lid on his idiotic notions about the Master and had him just wanting to bring Gallifrey back and thus the Time Lords. Because that would make SENSE.

I disliked everything about it except watching Simm!Master refuse to believe (though he did doubt!) that the Doctor could shoot him, even to save the world.

He never would. The Master knew that, but he's never seen this Doctor before, the one who ended the Time War by being more vicious and destructive than the Time Lords. He never saw how corrupt all of them got.

I'm not happy with everything they did in regards to the Time War (ESPECIALLY President Borussilon and the lack of Romana or any other Time Lady), but I think I'll be able to retcon it into my own headcanon eventually.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Better question is, why wouldn't he leap over the bar and HIT HIM?

Because Jack, like everyone else who knows the Doctor in RTD-verse, is pathologically incapable of actually blaming him for things that he does or does not do. :P My assumption is that Jack there was fresh off Children of Earth, and in that case... yeah. I wish the Doctor had talked to him, taken some time to listen to what he's been through and actually be there and be a friend to him, rather than just fobbing Alonso off on him, and having that somehow magically make things better. But it was still cute, and god forbid we expect a problem to be solved by something other than insta-love. :P

First off, my RAGE is up because they're both Time Ladies, not Time Lords

Waitaminute, were they both? *Headdesk* I thought only the one on the right was a woman, the one who turned out to be Susan (or whoever). If they were both Time Ladies, those were the only Time Ladies we saw other than She Who Got Killed Off in the First Five Minutes, and that is one of the most rage-inducing things I've seen in a long time.

And I'm so with you on all of this, particularly on how the whole thing would have been better if they'd just skipped the stupid cloning.

[bluerosefairy.livejournal.com]

I wish the Doctor had talked to him, taken some time to listen to what he's been through and actually be there and be a friend to him, rather than just fobbing Alonso off on him

God, I hope he's not fresh off CoE. That's not only horrifically insensitive on the Doctor's part, it's horrifically insensitive on Jack's part. He's thinking about sex RIGHT after Ianto died and he killed his own grandson?! If that's true, I think that might actually turn me off Jack for good.

If they were both Time Ladies, those were the only Time Ladies we saw other than She Who Got Killed Off in the First Five Minutes, and that is one of the most rage-inducing things I've seen in a long time.

Yes, they were BOTH Time Ladies. Both are shorter than the men, both had different robes and had their hair uncovered with no collars. And yeah, I am NOT PLEASED. I may, possibly, be writing fix-it fic to explain this horrific absence of awesome Time Ladies from my canon.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

As far as my head-canon goes, I'm thinking "fresh" as in several months (if not more... it is Jack, after all - it could be years, even decades). Mostly because, as you said, that would be abominably hideous otherwise.

...I'm trying not to get really really really pissed off here. I really am. And I'm not going to succeed. If I could come up with a fix-it, I would do it. So far, I'm just angry.

[bluerosefairy.livejournal.com]

I'll feel better if it turns out to be years or something like that. Because not that I don't want Jack to be happy, I just want him to be less of a douchebag than he already is.

It seriously bothers me that he couldn't find ANYTHING for a Time Lady to do in that entire serial but be killed to show the extent of Rassilon's douchebaggery or stand there silently crying for the Doctor. This from the show that gave us the three most awesome Time Ladies EVER in Romana, the Rani and Susan.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I just want him to be less of a douchebag than he already is.

I know. I'm really upset about that, because honestly, I loved first season Jack. He was awesome.

And yeah. The thing with the women... oh Rusty. Such a moron when it comes to women.

time's up

[velleitas.livejournal.com]

ugh i thought it was awful. there's never been so much angst precluding a regeneration... it's like rtd doesn't want us to like... mr smith hahaha i just realised he's a mister smith for real. anyway yeah. my mum and i both moaned and bitched through the whole thing, pretty much? i actually am quite excited for the next series... espwith moffat writing. it loks pretty interesting.

i squued over marfa tho... i love that woman. i love mickey too so seeing my two favourites married was prett OMG AWESOME in a lol, wtf? kind of way. i loved wilf too. those were pretty much the only things i liked here. the gun switch scene was painful to watch... i agree pretty much with your whole review, like i normallydo!

Re: time's up

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Me too, and I'm quickly forgiving Smith (ha, yes!) for not being Tennant, at least on a provisional basis. I want to give him a fair chance. And Moffat is ♥, at least as far as I'm concerned. Certainly compared to RTD. :P

I wish the Doctor'd had some actual interaction with all the people he'd stopped in on - I'd have loved to see him actually talk to Martha and Mickey, Sarah Jane, etc. And I was so happy to see Martha and Mickey again. I wasn't expecting that at all, and it was so exciting. ♥

[vega-ofthe-lyre.livejournal.com]

I just watched it this evening and came back to read your reaction and... yep, I think I have a big helping of WORD for everything you wrote here, I think my review was pretty much the same. ESPECIALLY about a whole planetful of Masters being, logically, way more trouble than we had onscreen. Oh, RTD.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

ESPECIALLY about a whole planetful of Masters being, logically, way more trouble than we had onscreen.

Yeah, that just boggled my mind. Can you see that, for real?

Master 1: Okay, now you're all going to obey me!
Masters 2-6 billion: ...You're funny. I am the Master, and you will obey me!
Master 1: ...I really should have thought of that. Doctor, help me!!! ♥