doctor who: the waters of mars

[carmen_lj]

Doctor Who was on tonight. Here are some things what I thought about it:

• I like the fact that the Evil Monster is water. And that it makes zombies. And Lindsay Duncan is teh awesome. But I'm going into this expecting it to be bloody miserable and for me to wish it was season five already. Mostly, therefore, if it's not a complete and utter depressing angstfest, I will be happy. (Ish.) But if it is, that's what I was expecting so no disappointment. It's a win-win!
  
  
• Sort of.
  
  
• Anyway...
  
  
• Love the quarry Marscape!
  
  
• Why is there a reject from Phantom Menace out looking for trespassers to arrest on a planet no humans have ever been on before? Whyyyyy?
  
  
• "The Doctor. Doctor. Ffffuun." Awesome delivery!
  
  
• "I hate funny robots." ILU DOCTOR. He totally was pissed off at the bloody SW prequels too, ah bet, yay. "Ah, well, dogs, that's different." Aha! Oh, cheap lols ftw. (Yeah, I hate myself.)
  
  
• No Forgettable Guest Star, there is no way you should ever ever call anywhere Eden. It's asking for trouble, the sort of trouble where you end up Very Very Dead.
  
  
• OH NOW YOU'RE DEAD. HA. Told ya so.
  
  
• Gusev Crater! *Mars!geek squee*
  
  
• "Oooh, I really should go..." Totally channelling The Trought, episode one, Tomb of the Cybermen, oh yes.
  
  
• Aw, man, I may love this just for having a few lines about how, yes, space travel is worth it.
  
  
• Okay, I do quite like this group of characters. I love that they actually act like a highly trained military/skientific lot who do not do stupid things, don't get stupidly incredulous and don't panic. I can believe Earth'd send these people on an interplanetary expedition. And Adelaide is tots rocking.
  
  
• Ancient north Martian: Ice Warrior or Ambassador Martians? ENQUIRING MINDS NEED TO KNOW.
  
  
• Woo! Think can assume Ice Warriors! Old skool shout-out! Winning!
  
  
• Oooh, I do like how Adelaide's background ties into Stolen Earth/JE. (This in no way justifies the sheer awfulness of JE, course, but it's a lovely scene.)
  
  
• Heh, the Doctor just said he loved Adelaide! Dudes!
  
  
• Lindsay Duncan's bleedin' amazing.
  
  
• Y'know I bet if Adelaide's granddaughter didn't fly that ship, someone else would. It really is just this appallingly unconvincing contrivance so the Doctor is an unheroic bastard has deep meaningful angsty manpain. Did someone forgot who this show is actually meant for? Cause kids seeing their beloved hero walk away as he listens to a base of people die one by one? Not exactly fun family viewing.
  
  
• OH THANK FUCK THAT TOOK HIM LONG ENOUGH.
  
  
• "The laws of time are mine and they will obey me!" Oh dear, hubris attack.
  
  
• This was going so well until Tennant started the manic weasel routine. It's like he's in some horrid competition with the music as to who can be the more irritatingly OTT.
  
  
• Stop looking so smug Doctor - it'd have been slghtly more impressive if you hadn't been walking away listening to a bunch of people DIE before helping them out.
  
  
• Good gravy, the Doctor's really being an utter bastard of hubristic crazy. Whatevs, dudes, whatevs. It ain't big and it ain't clever. It's the teenage idea of deep and it's just silly.
  
  
• "I've gone too far..." Yeah, I think I might be supposed to feel upset that Ten's going to die shortly and he looks a bit frightened by it. Instead I am Quite Cheered because V TIRED OF THE OTT EMO AND HUBRIS V TIRED.
  
  
• Cloister bell, cool!
  
  
• Heh, I thought we were meant to get the super long titles of the next episode.
  
  
• I see the finale contains crappy CGI. Marvellous.
  
  
• Alright, that was nowhere near as bad as what I expected. Lindsay Duncan was really really awesome and if I cut out the last ten minutes and all Deep Emo shots of Tennant, he was alright too. Hell of an improvement on Planet of the Dead anyway. And even with the bloody emo shots, I was definitely enjoying it until the last five minutes and, um, yes, I may just pretend that didn't happen. It was terribly silly. Everything else, not too shabby. Definitely worth another watch.

Comments

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

Donna had swine flu during this episode or is it not canon?

[calapine.livejournal.com]

I DON'T KNOW. There's lots of stuff mostly involving Duncan what I like a lot but OH GOD THE HUBRIS. Donna would NOT HAVE STOOD FOR THIS SHIT.

[gordon-r-d.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed it apart from the indecipherable dialogue when Murray Gold was playing at 11. I've been guessing for a while that Ten was going to go too far someday and that it would come back and bite him on the arse so hard he'll have to turn into Matt Smith and it's looking very much like that's going to happen. So I didn't mind the OTT and emo bits because I realise he's being set up for a biiiiiiiiiiiig fall.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

I want a heroic Doctor, dammit. I am not big on the hubris cause it's a bit like having to watch NAs. Pander to me telly!

[cyprinella]

Oh, so it wasn't just my congested ears then? That makes me feel better.

[jekesta]

I love that they actually act like a highly trained military/skientific lot who do not do stupid things, don't get stupidly incredulous and don't panic.

WHEN WHEN?????

I can believe Earth'd send these people on an interplanetary expedition.

WHAT? WHY?? WHAT?

[calapine.livejournal.com]

THEY DIDN'T PANIC OR GO ALL EMO AT THEIR DEAD COLLEAGUES. OR ASK ANNOYING QUESTIONS. OR GO "PFFT I FEAR NO WATER! I SHALL DRINK ALL THE WATER I LIKE."

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

Are we meant to pity him for the hubris and impending regeneration? Yeah, we probably are. Wheeeee.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

It's just cringey watching it. I object to that the most. I want to hide out of fear not embarrassment, dammit.

[nonelvis]

If we were, that certainly wasn't what I got out of it -- it was much more "OH NO YOU DIDN'T" and "This can only end badly, asshole, and you know it."

[drho.livejournal.com]

"The laws of time are mine and they will obey me!"

I missed the very, very end, but the Doctor turning into the Mr. Master was very intriguing.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

I am not fond of his antiheroics, alas. I want a dude that I would trust with my kid, dammit.

[beccaelizabeth]

Y'know I bet if Adelaide's granddaughter didn't fly that ship, someone else would. It really is just this appallingly unconvincing contrivance so the Doctor is an unheroic bastard has deep meaningful angsty manpain. Did someone forgot who this show is actually meant for? Cause kids seeing their beloved hero walk away as he listens to a base of people die one by one? Not exactly fun family viewing.
Yes. This.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

I'm just unbelievably glad that RTD has finally produced a story that unambiguously recognises Ten's megalomania and paternalism as problematic.

[serriadh.livejournal.com]

Yes, this. For the first time I thought the worst moments of hubris and paternalism were deliberate on the part of the writer(s).

[calapine.livejournal.com]

That is the silver lining. It's just so v not what Doctor Who's about for me that I get terribly irritated by it all (especially when it doesn't go anywhere for four years but just sits there, congealing.)

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

Thank you, yes. My jaw was on the floor by the end, because they *went there*. RTD himself *went there*.

Now all we need is for Moffat to come in and clean up. (:

[lycoris.livejournal.com]

I suppose it's kind of nice for them to produce a story that actually DEALS with Ten's insanity and brings it to the fore but ... not really a story I wanted to watch, you know? I liked the Doctor kind of more the Hero rather than a total hubris-filled asshole. And it was so very grim. I'm not a grim person on the whole. So ... yeah ...

But yes, Linday Duncan was fab.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

It's like he's in some horrid competition with the music as to who can be the more irritatingly OTT.

OMG ILU. Hee!

[oltha_heri.livejournal.com]

This was going so well until Tennant started the manic weasel routine. It's like he's in some horrid competition with the music as to who can be the more irritatingly OTT.
OH MY GOD THE MUSIC!!!!!!!! I WANT TO MAKE IT GO AWAY!!!!! I honestly have no idea what half the people said for most of this episode 'CAUSE THE MUSIC WAS PLAYING OVER THEM! Bad, bad editing that.

[biichan.livejournal.com]

This episode completely justifies my fear of Ten.

[eruvadhril.livejournal.com]

"The laws of time are mine and they will obey me!"

Am I the only one who thought of the Master there?

[yuxonomei.livejournal.com]

Nopes; it was as if Ten had been drinking Mister Master essence and turned into him a la Ood Slaver.

[rpgamera.livejournal.com]

I have wanted to comment on this so, so badly, because the ending left such a bad taste in my mouth. Subsequently, bad language follows.

Was I the only one who found it incredibly pathetic that Adelaide resorted to suicide to spite the Doctor? If she were so thoroughly horrified by him and his hubris (and the fact that he completely and utterly lost it in the last 10 minutes of the episode, she should've shot him in the fucking back. That was the first time that the Doctor was really, truly, 100% dangerous to the rest of time and space. I though the show was about to go there and Adelaide would shoot him; I really, really did. And you know, if it had, I would've been glad for it, because it would've been the most shocking thing I've seen in DW since Rose became The Universe.

Adelaide was a woman strong enough to kill him, too, and I think after witnessing the extent that his megalomania can go after that entire exchange, it would've been very plausible. I think the only restraint was that DW is still (incorrectly) classified as a family program, and the morality question of shooting a man in the back dishonourably vs. stopping a madman for the greater good are too complex for the show.

I don't buy into the whimpering "OH NOES I'VE GONE TOO FAR" bullshit of the Doctor, because it took a hero like Adelaide committing suicide to illicit any kind of a reaction from him. And furthermore, this also ties into the "Someone else would've piloted that ship" comments as well, with which I completely agree. Fixed points in time are all well and good and interesting, but are now starting to show themselves as shaky foundations for plot points. This episode could've ended more grimly and much more darkly, which would've been appropriate for the story created.

(TL;DR: I wish Adelaide had shot the Doctor in the back. End of series.)

This episode made me hate the character of Ten. As old and wise as he claims to be, he has the arrogance of a child. Only when the things he cares about are taken away from him forcibly is a reaction elicited from him. Then again, I can't help but feel we are purposely being alienated from Ten to prepare for the arrival of Eleven. Ten is a massively popular Doctor: easily the most popular since Four. His departure is going to be hard, but perhaps making him into a monster right in the end will wean viewers away, but pave the way for Eleven to make the mistakes of Ten right again.

[shobogan.livejournal.com]

I actually liked Ten's hubris this time, because it was intentional and it looks like he's going to pay for it! IT IS A STRANGE FEELING. And when Tennant wasn't being OTT ridiculous he was damn good at it. Anyway I much prefer the Doctor going dark because he is tired of watching people die instead of randomly being vengeful and tortuous.

(Also I may be a bit biased because I have totally written Five Having Enough and going "fuck it, Time is my bitch". In the show, though, I expect the Doctor to learn and get over it, which may finally happen now that it's been brought to the fore like this.)

What I don't get is...why the hell didn't he just bring them all to a different planet while the base exploded? Everyone on Earth STILL THINKS THEY ARE DEAD, history won't know the difference. So yes, the angst was yet again contrived.

[rather_crassly.livejournal.com]

I think I probably agree with you, though I do understand the complaints of the posters above us. I guess it depends on what you want from Ten, and from the show as a whole.

When Ten snapped mentally, or fell to hubris or whatever one wants to call it, I wanted to pump my fist in the air and whoop like a guy at an Aerosmith concert. He has been so nice, and so guilt-ridden, hagridden and hidebound that watching him sweep all the angst aside was a blast. It's like Joan of Arc broke out of prison and knocked over a liquor store--wrong, but awesome. "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

Though I'm sure that this is going to blow up horribly, and I'm thinking that *maybe* his lapse in judgment has broken a few bits of Time and somehow allowed The Master to come back. Should be interesting!