Doctor Who: Human Nature

[carmen_lj]

Is it good? Is it good? Oh, it's bloody awesome. Oh, wowness. Indeed.

• Right from the start, right from the very start, I couldn't say that about IP/SP, I needed those first thirty seconds cut off, but no, here we go straight into the story - always a big help when you're working with such limited time like the New Series is.
  
  
• Okay, fair enough, they have to escape the Family rather than it being An Experience thing. Makes more sense with the New Series, saves time, though not quite so much a punchy motivation.
  
  
• But, hell yeah, that was The Best Teaser Ever. (It so was.)
  
  
• He! Mortar board! He! Oh, I am a bit in love with the look of this thing, yes.
  
  
• Oh, yes! Yer actual racism! Brilliant! That's all I needed, just that acknowledgemnt that casual racism was accepted and ingrained in the society. And classism! And Smith being a bit racist too! Dude! That's what Daleks Take Manhattan needed.
  
  
• And Martha is a bit brilliant (actually, a fib, it's not Martha, it's Freema, cause it's the way she's playing it here, it's really fecking brilliant. There's so much in her performance, it's beautifully layered here - possibly her best performance of the season?)
  
  
• Oh *Joan* and *John* and romantic farce with those stairs. And she's a nurse, not a teacher! Dude! Shippity-ship shit the good Martha/Ten ship, yes.
  
  
• Empty child picture! Daleks! Moxx of Balhoon! Rose! Cybermen! Oh, for an old skool-
  
  
• OMG HE DREW HIMSELF OMG ALL HIS INCARNATIONS IS THIS THE BEST MOMENT EVER I THINK IT MIGHT BE OMG EIGHT IS PROPER CANON NOW YOU CANNOT EVER DENY AGAIN AND I LOVE EVERYTHING EVER OMG.
  
  
• Love the Joan & Martha stuff to - it's practically electric! Kudos to both actresses and Cornell, aye.
  
  
• Heh, is that the kid from Love Actually? Liz Shaw was his grandmother in that movie, y'know.
  
  
• Martha and Jenny are also greatness. Oh, it's so Martha's story this, much as I love every second of Smith onscreen.
  
  
• He, it be Martha's TARDIS now. (Oh, please for fic of Martha and TARDIS bonding in Doctor's absence, yo.)
  
  
• Ha! So that DNA thing HAS JUST BEEN HANGING AROUND THE TARDIS ALL THESE CENTURIES, EH? Also if that's standard install on a type 40 (and I can't see why the Doctor would go out of his way to get such a bloody awful thing) then one might assume later TARDISes also have one, in which case there's quite an esay explanation for why Nine could sense no other Time Lords, yo.
  
  
• Yes! Benny's list! But in visual form!
  
  
• NO MONSTERS DURING THE DAYTIME. BAD WHO.
  
  
• NOT THE FREAKIN RED BALLOON, NOES, MEEPNESS. (This is the thing that freaked me out something rotten in the book.)
  
  
• "I hope, Latimer, one day you may have a just and proper war to prove yourself." That hurt even before the flash forwards. That hurt a lot.
  
  
• Mr Smith is a lot meaner in this version - he's all down with the guns and the beatings and not half as whacked out as Seven!Smith seemed to everyone else.
  
  
• Oh, he so was channelling Five with that throw. And, yes! It's even a cricket ball.
  
  
• Gallifrey mention, yay!
  
  
• EEEEEEEEEeeee! Smashing old skool in-joke! Smith's parents were Sydney (Newman) and Verity (Lambert), he.
  
  
• Oh, Martha, being all clever with teh scary!Jenny and then running like a very sensible person, well done her.
  
  
• "Martha, this is what we call a story." Patronising, then slightly racist twit. And she slaps him, hurrah! LOVE.
  
  
• And, to top it all of, my beloved Gratuitous Killing Off Of Bit Part Players is in in force. Win!
  

So unless they completely feck up next week, HN/FoB is right up there with IP/SP, GitF-ace and EotW for me. Bloody brilliant.

Comments

[calapine.livejournal.com]

LOVE ACTUALLY IS GOOD FOR SOMETHING, YAY!

DW DID RPS OMG! SYDNEY/VERITY FTW!

[calapine.livejournal.com]

FALLING IS BAD FOR ANKLES PROBABLY.

[evil_plotbunny]

*replies just to use icon*

[calapine.livejournal.com]

Truly that was a fearful slope for someone with as weak an ankle as Sarah, yes.

[evil_plotbunny]

And yet she ran for years in heels with no problem.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

Those were what did her wee ankles in!

[evil_plotbunny]

*pets* It is a very bad place to start with Sarah, given that she was supposed to be with Four and, I think, Jo was supposed to have her part...

[calapine.livejournal.com]

BAD ANKLES!

[calapine.livejournal.com]

I HOPE HE REMEMBERS IT GOOD.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

SHE DESERVES MUCH WONDERFULNESS PUTTING UP WITH HIS TWATISHNESS.

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

Me not like as much as I hoped? :(

[calapine.livejournal.com]

Smith is not having as much residual Doctorishness as ye wished?

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

YUS. He had, like, none at all :(

[calapine.livejournal.com]

The ball throwing magic like Five?

But, yus, I assume that is cause this time he was trying to hide, so it makes sense, if not making him exactly likable.

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

Me not like :*(

Fuck! I was looking forward to this! But the lack of any Doctorness makes the experiment sort of pointless?

[calapine.livejournal.com]

But he's not seeing it as an experiment dis time, so all these complications are going to be utterly flaily ones as he wasn't looking for anything except a place to hide.

Oh, ::pets::, there will be Martha/Jack/Ten soon-ish, ys?

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

Yah, but in New Who terms? What it adding in character stuffs?


And yes, cos of all that widows stuff and how Smith will so choose Joan thus implying that the Doctor would choose Martha.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

It seems to illustrate the Doctor's fundamental insecurity and his (latent/earlier) desire to fit in (which could have been indoctrinated into him by the culture on Gallifrey.)

First we have him talking to the kid about understanding why he doesn't push himself, so he doesn't get noticed (implying that the Doctor did the same, which would tie-in with the 'lonely child outside the window' in GitF'ace. His own acceptance of the racism and classism around him could reflect a time when he accepted the strict rules and such of Galifreyan society. It suggests that rather than rebellion from that society simply being the Doctor's nature, that their was some actual experience that acted as a trigger point. Smith has not had that experience, thus he might be eccentric, but he conforms.

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

Ooh, go you! I hope it... is better for me next week? Cos the Doctor be so not like Smith it feel bit pointless for me, also I be sad cos I wanted Ten/Joan :( It seem more like Doctor's very nature make him be rebel, though, cos of the thing he not have is that nature. Err, or something. Like how Joan asked if he is a slag and he said no is just the Doctor is big slag not him. Bit with cricket-ball seemed to shock him.

Also SAD FOR MARTHA

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

In being human the Doctor is more stereotypically Time Lord than ever?

[calapine.livejournal.com]

Time Lords are pretty racist dudes when it comes to humans/yer lower lifeforms, yah, so that works. So...the Doctor is a product of nurture, not nature, which, y'know, I don't agree with, but it's supportable.

But he seems to be reaching for something in himself when he's forced to *think* about things. Like...he's being complacent and that's why he's cack, but if he gets some motivation, then maybe he'll be better. Like "people spend all their times making nice things and other people come along and brek them" and he's all yay and Joan and that's when he fixes the scarecrow. And be's a hero with a ball. He needs someone to be heroic for?

[nerdcakes.livejournal.com]

I hadn't realised that Seven as Mr Smith wasn't as massive a jerk as Ten!Smith is. Dude. I THOUGHT SEVEN WAS MEANT TO BE ALL EVIL AND MANIPULATIVE IN THE NAs? Fandom has clearly steered me wrong - Ten's WAY more badass.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

Seven!Smith totally makes of mockery of corporal punishment and gets into trouble with the headmaster. And he's well-judgy at the guns thing and tries avoiding it and the headmaster is basically saying turn up or YOU IS SACKED.

Tem!Smith is much more integrated with teh time, which, I thinks, makes more sense since he's hiding and Seven just wanted to get human!emo.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

Satan Pit!

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

Psst... Satan Pit (the other half of the IP 2 parter). :-)

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

OMG HE DREW HIMSELF OMG ALL HIS INCARNATIONS IS THIS THE BEST MOMENT EVER I THINK IT MIGHT BE OMG EIGHT IS PROPER CANON NOW YOU CANNOT EVER DENY AGAIN AND I LOVE EVERYTHING EVER OMG.

That was great even though 8 still isn't canon.

So that DNA thing HAS JUST BEEN HANGING AROUND THE TARDIS ALL THESE CENTURIES, EH?

I thought it was implied the Doctor built it himself?

Oh, Martha, being all clever with teh scary!Jenny and then running like a very sensible person, well done her.

That was lovely.

I loved both Tennant and Freema's acting in this one. Jessica Stevenson was fabulous too.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

EIGHT IS CANON, CANON SAYS SO.

I watch again for that, cause I do very much wish to know where it came from, ys.

Jessica Stevenson wasn't like Daisy at all! (I have not seen her in very much, so I had no idea she was quite that good, noes.)

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

CANON IS ALWAYS WRONMG ABOUT CANON. ::is old skool::
I want screencaps of that scene sooo much!

Jessica Stevenson for eleventh Doctor!

[calapine.livejournal.com]

NOES! Jessica Stevenson for Romana!

[calapine.livejournal.com]

Oh, I could totally be Rusty, yo.

[fly-to-dawn.livejournal.com]

OLD SKOOL REFERENCES FOR THE WIN! HE DREW HIS INCARNATIONS AND EVEN DREW EIGHT! VERITY LAMBERT & SYDNEY NEWMAN! GALLIFREY IN IRELAND! CRICKET BALL!

Ooooh, how I loved this. And it is so Martha's story. Martha is just brilliant.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

Oh, dude, I just realised, Gallifrey in Ireland's in the TV Movie, ain't it? YAYS!

TWO TV MOVIE REFS! WIN!

[fyrdrakken]

Totally didn't recall that from the TVM, but I did recall Four doing a Gallifrey reference and being asked pretty much the same question in response. Which thrilled me with the Old School.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

...Or maybe it was 4...

Now I have to check! *frets*

[the-mardy-bum.livejournal.com]

Ooooooooooooooh - weeeee - ooooooooh ~

can't type coherently ~ bloody ace!!! I nearly died through gasping and forgetting to breathe out again about ninety times ~~

come on next week, PLEASE don't be shite ~

*wishingandhopingwishingandhoping*

MB

[eido.livejournal.com]

Martha channels Donna by slapping him and I love her now in a way which is probably unhealthy (and must be illegal in at least 10 states).

He, it be Martha's TARDIS now.

Cuz she IS the Doctor. She even has All My Companions Leave Me (And Love/Marry Someone Like Me) emo. Martha is Three.

[alawston.livejournal.com]

It looks as though we were squeeing in roughly all the same places. The Rose mention of the week would have annoyed me, although it was at least justified by the context - it even makes me wonder whether all the Rose stuff, far from just catering to the batshit shippy people's emo, might in fact be going somewhere. Rose certainly seems to have the presence in Smith's memories that Verity had in the novel.

YOU MISSED THE HYMN THOUGH!

The singing of To Be A Pilgrim put me off the scale - first for its general relevance to the Doctor, and then for its 'Follow the Master' line. Such things being never coincidental.

[svanderslice.livejournal.com]

EEEEEEEEEeeee! Smashing old skool in-joke! Smith's parents were Sydney (Newman) and Verity (Lambert), he.

Could you please explain this to someone less versed in classic who? Pretty please?

[narm00.livejournal.com]

Sydney was the Head of Drama at the BBC during the 1960s. He was the chief mind behind the concept of 'Doctor Who' - he came up with the basic idea of the Doctor, and the time machine that was bigger on the inside than on the outside.

Verity was the classic series' first producer, overseeing the first two seasons (and some of the third season, as well).

[calapine.livejournal.com]

Sydney's the dude who first pitched Who to the BBC, the creator, yes, and Verity was the first producer.

[boji.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, when it's good it's bloody marvellous!

[hobbylobby.livejournal.com]

He, it be Martha's TARDIS now. (Oh, please for fic of Martha and TARDIS bonding in Doctor's absence, yo

Sorry, I just got to watch it and had to come read your thoughts. I completely agree with the Martha/Tardis Love.