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

[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.