Doctor Who episode in home video format. Be on the lookout for Davros as "Mr. Happy."


(found via boing boing)

WELL. FUCKING. DONE.

And three cheers to Donna.

I don't think feeds include the cuts, so

IF YOU ARE ON A FEED, SPOILERS AHEAD.  RUN FAST AND SWIFT, GOOD PEOPLE.

Anyway, on to the cut . . . .









The end.

I would like you to please read my avatar.  Daily.  I would like you to repeat it to yourself every morning when you wake up and again before bed.

BECAUSE IT WAS, YOU DIMWIT.  AND NOTHING MORE.

Gah.

Okay.  Non-spoiler:

Doctor Who, series three, episode one "Smith and Jones" was very, very good.

Spoilers:

No spoilers, but there will be heavy sighs.

Just watched the Doctor Who Christmas Special, which I think may be called "The Runaway Bride," but which I insist on calling "The Christmas Invasion" because I am apparently a year behind. Though, given my reaction, I can see why I'm persisting.

The show was very good and well done on several levels--funny and sad, suspenseful, sometimes silly, and lots of Tennant goodness. I really do enjoy him. And that's a good thing, because if I didn't adore him so much, I think I'd probably just not watch for a few years and catch it later.

I miss Rose so much. SO much. It's never going to be quite the same without her. I really worried at the loss of Eccleston, because I did enjoy him, but Tennant won me last year in the Christmas special, and so it was okay. But I was always there for Rose, I think, the bossy, naggy, full-of-heart shopgirl with too much eye makeup. I love how brave she was, often much braver and definitely smarter than the Doctor.

I will "spoil" only mildly to say that she is occassionally referenced in the Christmas ep, and I thought it was well done. Not wallowing, but she was there. It was hard, because if the whole show would have been mopey I would have been too depressed to watch, but if they'd just blown by her I would have stopped, too. They did well.

I'm kind of glad there's going to be a break before the next installment. I'm still just sick over Rose. I haven't rewatched hardly any of series two, save the beginning, and I can't bear to watch the end again. Just thinking about it makes me sad.

There are times that Eccleston was a lot better actor than Tennant, but I really do love Davy T better because he's so lively and full of the part.

I am fading a little, though, because now I hear the rumor that David T is leaving after series four, which I'm sure he has every right to, but THAT I don't want to think about at all.

I just miss Rose something terrible, though. I'm realizing now that I've been watching due in large part for her. My reaction to the Christmas special is on two levels: on an intellectual/creative level, I would say it was well done and clever and they hit all the right notes, and that series three looks great.

But on a Heidi level, I just miss Rose. Last year at this time I was chomping for series two. This year I just miss Rose.

Sigh.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, HA!  Lookee, lookee at what I got in the mail today from my MOST DARLING AND AWESOME HUSBAND.

Oh, three cheers for Davies!  "School Reunion" rocks!!!!

And "The Girl in the Fireplace" is 90% downloaded!

Loving the exclamation points!

Warning: this entry has great gobs of spoilers for Doctor Who, though little of it is about plot and most if it is about character. Personally I'd say if you haven't watched it and plan to you should skip it. I wrote this up for my own purposes, but I liked how it turned out so I thought I'd post it in case there's somebody desperately trolling for Doctor Talk, which I sympathize with totally. Here it is.

**

To us, the Doctor is an alien.  To him he's not, though, he's just himself.  He's normal to him, he's himself.His normal is radically different from everybody else, though.  By most people's sense he'd be at the time of a linear hierarchy – but is he?  Does he think so?  I don't believe it.  I think there's a part of him that knows he's more aware, has more knowledge than most people, but I don't think he believes he's superior.  There's an egoism that must go with it, but that's not a flaw, that's part of omnipotence.  If you're going to have separate consciousness on your own and then also have that much knowledge, you have to be aware that you're "greater" than most.  But I think you'd also realize what a burden this is.

But to be the LAST of the Time Lords . . . . well.  And to be the one who killed your own people off to stop a threat to the universe at large?  And to not be entirely sure this was the best choice?  Then to find out that your solution didn't work?

So he's traveling.  He's always traveling, always on his own, sometimes with companions but with a sense of the greater unity of Time Lords, until now.  Now it's just him, completely alone.  Utterly.  And I bet he feels a sense of responsibility, like now he has to bear up all the work the Time Lords would have done as a race.  He's not just the last of the Time Lords, he's THE Time Lord, so he's sort of God as man, only knowing his job is impossible.  He's got to patrol the entire universe himself.  Maybe he wishes he'd died, too, but he couldn't and didn't, and now here he is, left bearing the guilt of surviving and the responsibility of those he had to kill.

Now, enter Rose. At first she's just another human to save, though she seems to intrigue him right off.  She's spunky.  She's smart.  She's assertive.  But still, human.  She can't possibly be that different from anybody else he's traveled with.  She can't be that significant.  Still, she doesn't run from danger, though she's not stupid.  She asks good questions.  She takes stuff in quickly.  She adjusts well.  Also, she keeps showing up.

She reminds him about humanity – also, I think, beyond humanity, which is just about her race, to simply about a love of life.  I think he may have lost some of that in the Time War, but Rose helps him regain some of it.  She reminds him about life.  And I think initially, maybe, attaching to her is his first step towards being able to love his own life again.

The bit where he talks about the turn of the earth, them clinging to the skin of the planet – I think that's his entire mental state.  He's just running.  Going.  He doesn’t have joy in it anymore, it's a job.  And he meets Rose and she's really interested and he's polite and appreciates her, but he's got walls up.  "I'm big.  I've got this weight.  You won't want to be with me, nobody would – it's too painful.  I don't like it.  Why would you?"

Except she's always there, always competent, always Rose.  She helps.  She grounds him.  She takes him to task.  She's a companion the minute she spots the London Eye as the transmitter.  But before that, she accepts him. 

She asks if he's alien, and he says, "Yep.  Is that all right?"  Quick exchange.  And yet!  Here he is, facing the first person to really measure up since the Time War, with someone who intrigues him, and first he's got to make sure his normal is okay.  And it is, which is great, but that moment.  I love that moment.

But he really has forgotten how to live life.  He can't care about Mickey's possible death because he's got to think about the life of "every stupid ape on this planet."  But it's only three eps until he's in the cabinet room at Downing Street afraid to save the world because it risks Rose, so that's why I think he attaches his love of life to "love of Rose."  He can't love himself, but he can love and protect her.

She spots that wheel in the first ep, and it clicks for him.  A companion!  A helper!  Not to be alone!  And then she doubles her worth by not just being clever and interesting, but being useful.  She saves his life, and not just here.  Over and over again, she's going to save his life, but it starts here. 

The whole of series one is the Doctor learning how to live again.  He comes to us having just killed his race to save everyone else, and he has guilt and fear and worry over that, but Rose saves him because she helps him see that all he has to do is live, to love his life, that he can't have the whole of time and space on his head, because it hurts.  He has to let it go. 

 
Everything he says to her at the end of "The Parting of the Ways" is what he needs to hear himself.  When Goddess Rose is standing there in her glory, unable to let go of the power but doomed to die because of it, she's become a mirror of him.  She/the TARDIS become what he has become and shows him he's going to destroy himself – not a physical death, but an emotional death.  The power's going to kill him.  Rather – the GUILT is going to kill him.  He's got to let it go.  And he does.  It's actually so perfect and fitting that he has to change here.  It'd be weird if he didn't.  Because now that chapter of his life is closed.  He's a new man.  Everything is different.  Rose should mourn him, because he'll never be that dark and vulnerable and lonely again.

 

I think when anyone is lonely what they're really pining for is themselves.  We are never alone until we've lost our sense of our own self.   The minute he opens the doors to the TARDIS in "The Christmas Invasion," right from, "Did you miss me?"  he's different.  He loves himself again.  He doesn't even know who he is, but he loves himself.  It's palpable.  Some of it is Tennant's portrayal, but a lot of it is that he's a different Doctor now – not because he changed, but because he found himself again. And now series two is going to be a whole new story.

We've already got a taste of what's to come, and I don't just mean the trailer at the end of TCI.  The legs of the new journey are in place.  I love the hand cutting off bit and the regeneration – it could symbolize so many things.  It could mean his companion – maybe Rose will be less essential to him now.  He still loves her, but now she's not vital to him.  If he had to lose Rose it wouldn't be the death of his race all over again.  It could mean himself – go ahead, cut off my hand, cut off my people, cut off my whole sense of self, but I'll just grow a new one. 

It also makes me wonder about series two, about his new character.  Will he be more invincible?  Definitely he's going to take more risk.  He's got a zest which is really fun.  But more clues: he doesn't give second chances.  He's ruthless in his judgment.  He destroys Harriet Jones with six words, and he doesn't regret it.  He's strong again, whole.  This makes me wonder what sort of enemies he's going to conjure now.

Cool.

Right -- so, my daughter has started going to preschool daily as of the first of the year.  This translates to two full hours of writing time every morning, and I was determined to be good.  I was, mostly -- Wednesday (first day back) I made notecards.  Yesterday I brainstormed.  Today I watched the last fifteen minutes of The Christmas Invasion repeatedly, freeze framing shamelessly.  (I adore .avi files.)

You know, that latter still was work, and so is this journal entry.  Seriously.  Because for part of it I listened to the audio commentary from the web (again) by the writer and producers (the brilliant Russell T was there), and doing that was writing work.  I'm not sure why yet, but all I know is that I stared at that horrible blank screen and blinking cursor, unable to start act two, so I watched the end of TCI again and felt like if I wrote this journal entry, then I'd be all set and able to write.

I think it's because that story is such DAMN GOOD STORY.  My poor friends -- come February when there's a US release, I'm going to be terrible.  I think I'm going to buy it for my dad for his birthday, which is in March.  But it is, it really really is.  And I just wasn't sure at all about Tennant -- I was so in love with Eccelston, but oh, Tennant defied logic and reason and was instantly even better. 

What is it about the Doctor?  Is it because he's so competent and yet so childlike?  I've never seen anybody be 900 years old and have that kind of energy and vitality and love of life.  I think that's why Tennant is so fabulous, because Eccleston was GREAT but so sad and down because he had to be, given what he had to do to Gallifrey, and he really loved life, but he seemed to love everybody's life but his own.  Until the end.  And now we have Tennant, who looks ready to dance his way across the screen for the rest of time.

But I think the biggest reason I love Tennant is because of the "Attack of the Graske."  I know Eccelston was big into this show being for the kids, and oh, he's my first Doctor so he will always always always be sacred, but after I watched the Graske ep which was so obviously geared for kids -- well, you could just tell Tennant would have been one of the little boys gleefully pressing the remote, glad to be the Doctor's companion for ten minutes.  And he both takes such care in the role and yet so clearly ADORES it, revels in it.  I hope he never leaves.  I hope he's on for twenty years.  I know he won't be, but oh, I adore him.  He's so fabulous.

Also, cute as hell.  That doesn't hurt at all.

Davies, though -- he's my main man.  He has officially gone on the list of People I Need To Hug Before I Die.  We're heading to England in the spring, and I'm trying to find the right argument for a day trip to Cardiff.  As I'm getting my husband hooked on Who as well, it may not be as hard a sell as I think.  I know I won't see Davies, but I just want to go stand near his aura for awhile.  I'm sure I'd embarass myself if I ran into him, because I'd probably just start crying.  But my God, he takes such CARE.  I've never seen anybody love story like him.  Yeah, I hear the critics who say he makes logic leaps.  Oh, probably.  But this man put a SWORD FIGHT in TCI.  Ohmygod I about died.  And he set the whole episode up to help eight year old boys adjust to a new Doctor, and made sure to put in references and little details.  And gets excited because the wardrobe people made Jackie and Rose's outfits clash, because that suits their personalities and their dynamic.  He loves the story, loves his characters, and loves his audience and takes care of them all.  Plus he's brilliantly intelligent and knows it but doesn't gloat.  God, I need to at least shake his hand.  And sob on it.

And now to work with me.  But look!  Three blogs in one week.  Go, me.