End of Time II

[carmen_lj]

A proper review-like thing of EoT II, rah.

• I think the thing that annoyed me above all other things - and there were a lot - was that I wasn't sad to see Ten go. I cried ridiculously at PotW, I was wahhh! at the TV Movie and everyone else's regeneration was a fait accompli by the time I saw Who so, yeah. But watching EoT, getting to the end and having my most overwhelming emotion be relief is kind of, um, not what I really want from the end of a Doctor's run. That made me sad.
  
  
• I was relieved because, although it was terrible (and it was, I cannot imagine reccing this story to anyone, even if they were like a crazy huge John Simm fan or something), it was not Irredeemably Godawful, nor did it leave me in a Daze of Awfulness like JE: there were quite a few things I liked.
  
  
• I liked that the Doctor died to save one person. Shame about the childish whiny tantrum beforehand because it was more Whiny Emo Ten (which obv we have NOt Had enough of Like Ever) when it could have been Lovely Heroic Ten Saving Everyone's Grandpa but nooooooo, there had to be more petulant childish whinging. So execution, appalling, but idea, well in favour of.
  
  
• It was a bit like it was trying to take the save-one-life beauty of Androzani and Epic Epicness of Logopolis/War Games and mix them together. Again, it's a nice thought, alas the thing where you Need A Fucking Plot seemed to have been forgotten. I just can't believe they sheer level of contrivance. I can't believe how much pointless cack was just thrown in over the two-parter for the sake of trying to make shallow shallowness look like the Mariana Trench. Why were the Ood advancing so fast? Why were people having bad dreams? How, in any sense, were these the finals days of Earth you great big narrating liar? Magic diamonds? Rassilon? A LITERAL HANDWAVE TO FINISH A PLOTLINE? (Actually I think that's lolarious, but in a totally dreadful way.)
  
  
• Why was Donna in this? The great joy of Donna was Donna&theDoctor. And here she was in it to be MARRIED OFF. I lol at everyone who has ever criticised classic Who for the appalling sexism of marrying off companions because New Who now has 100% of companions married off, and mostly to people they just met (or the audience just met, so we don't really care at all.) BRAVO.
  
  
• I really like the idea of Martha and Mickey Having Adventures but sod off to the marriage thing. What happened to Tom anyway?
  
  
• I really, really liked when Simm!Master calmed down and had decent scenes with Tennant. I loved those bits massively. And am a bit yay that RTD managed not to stuff the Actual Climax with CGI awfulness (I guess he got that out of his system with the spaceship/missile nonsense - though at least that was nicked offa one of the good Star Wars movies) but it was An Exciting Choice of which nutter to shoot.
  
  
• So naturally he shot the computer. But I am a bit glee that the climax was basically riffing offa what Barry Letts was thinking of doing thrity-five years ago with the Doctor and Master and oh they got out of each other's way and were basically onna same side even though the Master did lolsome "I'm on your side, let's get the Doctor, yay!" and then made a sad face at the Doctor for pointing a gun at him.
  
  
• And it was nice the stupid artron energy bolts were actually used for something.
  
  
• Rassilon? Fine, whatevs. Nameless Time Lord lady? Partly I am whatevs at RTD being Vague and Mysterious in attempt to create Depth and Meaning, but mostly I am yay cause that means fandom has a dead shiny thing to play with. I am nah at the Doctor's Mother; my shipperness is YAY! at Romana and the sekrit space wedding, and my favourite is Susan looking out for her grandfather. I find that one just utterly wonderful and probably it will be my canon.
  
  
• If I didn't love the Time Lords massively, I'd have found their FIVE SECONDS OF TRIUMPH before being shoved back into the ether lolsome. ALAS I LOVE TIME LORDS HDU. Also, what a massively bleh anticlimax.
  
  
• I really can't believe Donna was brought back to be MARRIED OFF. It is just appalling.
  
  
• I liked that he went to see Joan's granddaughter though. That was a bit wonderful.
  
  
• But, again, having seen RTD finale's before, I did expect the last twenty minutes to be a great big goodbye but, oh god, it just went on and on and on and it was so boring and I was watching this with alicamel, jekesta and cakesy and there was much shouting of DIE ALREADY at the screen because OMG WTF GET ON WITH IT. Ugh, this year's just been so dull and repetitive and has had nothing new or interesting to say and now you're repeating the end of bloody JE and just HURRY UP WANT MATT SMITH NOW.
  
  
• I am really quite woe I wasn't even a little bit sad to see Ten go.
  
  
• I approved of all thirty seconds or whatever of Matt Smith. I am ridic excited about the New Doctor, which is quite nice.
  
  
• In conclusion, it could have been worse; it should have been a hell of a lot better.

Comments

[communicator.livejournal.com]

the Master did lolsome "I'm on your side, let's get the Doctor, yay!" and then made a sad face at the Doctor for pointing a gun at him.

Ha ha yes he did. I don't know if you ever saw the Red Dwarf 'Horsemen of the Apocalypse' but that's just like Lister's VR femme fatale girlfriend.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall RD had MOAR SNOGGINGS that what we got in EoT.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

a shocking oversight by the director

[calapine.livejournal.com]

Indeedy.

[arjuna-lj.livejournal.com]

Icon snap! (nearly :)

I do like your comparison.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

'Golden Brown'. I'm a big Breaking Bad fan; we seem few on the ground in lj land.

[arjuna-lj.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping the DVD release (s? hopefully) in Aust. will stir things up a bit locally, but so far the main fanbase seems to be in the US and not awfully given to slash etc. Which IMHO is downright criminal :)

[jo-mako.livejournal.com]

I just finished my thoughts on the finale...I actually liked the farewells for the most part...but yeah with the whole Mickey/Martha married thing. Although they do look cute in that last shot of them holding each other.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

They both looked incredible, ah thought. It took me a minute to recognise Noel Clarke cause, yeah, Mickey got hotter as the years went on but he was totally OMG HOT here.

[jo-mako.livejournal.com]

letsey_x has a really cool picspam of the really long death scene and yeah...there's Martha Mickey hotness in there.

I guess because I've been kind of out of fandom (and not just DW) for a while, that this wasn't as disappointing to me as it would have been, say six months ago?

[arjuna-lj.livejournal.com]

he was totally OMG HOT here.

I totally concur. NC doesn't normally appeal to me but Guerilla!Mickey - yum.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

the thing where you Need A Fucking Plot seemed to have been forgotten. I just can't believe they sheer level of contrivance. I can't believe how much pointless cack was just thrown in over the two-parter for the sake of trying to make shallow shallowness look like the Mariana Trench

This, in a nutshell, is why I am SO relieved to see the back of RTD. Moffat's stories may not hold up under deep scrutiny (seriously, how did the Angels evolve?) but you at least don't *notice* during the episode because there's an internal logic that lets you go with the flow as opposed to blatant, random attempts to elicit emotion.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's the sort of scrutiny level I don't care about cause Cool Monsters do not need to judtify their existence to me. PLOTPOINTS THROWN IN FOR FAKE!DEPTH DO.

[starmalachite.livejournal.com]

I really like the idea of Martha and Mickey Having Adventures but sod off to the marriage thing. What happened to Tom anyway?

Also: Wow, way to move out of Rose's shadow once & for all -- NOT.

Agree with pretty much everything said here. Especially about the whinging. Personally, I've been hoping for years that someday we'd get Ten *without* RTD, so I'm quite disappointed we won't get at least 1 season of Moff in charge of Ten's life. But them's the breaks.

[moljn.livejournal.com]

I would really have liked to have seen Moffat!Ten as well, especially now. If this had only been RTD's last eps it wouldn't have mattered so much what we got, but man, he could have bothered to give DT a better send-off.

(sorry if you get this twice. it didn't show up in the right place the first time)

[nonelvis]

But watching EoT, getting to the end and having my most overwhelming emotion be relief is kind of, um, not what I really want from the end of a Doctor's run.

I know the feeling. I kept waiting for whatever moment the cast had assured us would have everyone in floods of tears, and it never happened, because I was just so damned happy to finally have that giant emo mess over and done with. And I love Tennant! I am sad I will have less of him on my TV screen! (Unless his pilot gets picked up, heh.) But those episodes were so mediocre-to-awful that I just feel glad that I don't have to watch them again -- and even better, that I probably never have to worry again about suffering through another of Rusty's finales.

[wishfulaces.livejournal.com]

The whiny tantrum before he saved the individual life? Really pissed me off. You don't see Five whining before he saves Peri! C'mon, Ten, do better! *shakes tiny fist of rage*

I wasn't sad either. The sad thing really is Tennant's a great actor, but his Doctor just bugs the crap out of me sometimes. Hmph.

The best bits in both parts really were the Master & the Doctor when they were just talking, not cackling madly or running about pointlessly. More of that and less of the pointless dramatics, please.

[elyssadc.livejournal.com]

I can't believe how much pointless cack was just thrown in over the two-parter for the sake of trying to make shallow shallowness look like the Mariana Trench.

Just another reason why I absolutely adore you. What a beautiful sentence.

Also? I can't imagine I'm ever gonna sit through this steaming pile of crap. My loathing of Ten and all the shit that comes with him and RTD has become almost overwhelming lately. So much so that it's making me sort of bitter. Maybe I just need some distance. UGH.

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

I ALWAYS KNEW HE WAS IN LOVE WITH JOAN! *batshits in yer poast*

[alawston.livejournal.com]

Joan's granddaughter being called Verity Newman wrenched the memory lane nonsense back on track for me.

[fannishnonsense]

The part with Joan's granddaughter was the only part I teared up at. Which is bizarre, considering how much I loathed those episodes. Still, nice to know she had a happy life in the end.

I am so excited about Eleven! He looks so great and I already totally love him and can't wait to see his episodes! Yays!

[pextheunalive.livejournal.com]

Actually, Donna being married off, I agree with. It brings her story to a "full circle" close (minus the Marshmen, of course), since it was the disruption of her first wedding that took her into the Doctor's life. It's only right that the last we see of her is her getting married like she originally wanted, even if it wasn't to Lance as she originally intended. In that way, it reminds me of Ben and Polly's exit, as they were dropped back off on the same day they left and allowed to continue their lives as if nothing had happened. Which, for Donna, it hadn't, sort of. And the beauty of her passing out and missing/not remembering important stuff gels perfectly with all the times she didn't notice Daleks and spaceships and such before she ever met the Doctor.

I agree about the Mickey/Martha marriage being a bad idea, but the logic of "Why It's a Bad Idea" is spotty, at best. New Who and it's spinoffs like to have interracial couples as a norm, from Rose and Mickey to Donna/Lance and Donna/New Guy, Ricky/His Partner Whose name I forget. So why does it feel like the only reason Martha and Mickey ended up together at the end was that they were both black and not irrevocably attached to anyone? Yeah, technically Martha was engaged to Tom, but it sucks that we don't ever find out what happened to him and why they didn't wind up together like they were planning to.

[airie-fairy.livejournal.com]

The idea of it being Susan sounds the loveliest. But it leaves me feeling bad for Susan being stuck in a bubble with that MADNESS. So I dunno if I've accepted it, even though it was the only possibility that came to mind for me.

I'm of two minds at the Wilf-saving tantrum. It would've been a lot better if it'd been stoic self-sacrifice without the trimmings, but at the same time I'm like "okay so he's been running around with this spectre of death for however long and it's been building up and now he looks up and that thing he's been freaking out about has Wilf at the helm of it sort of and he's just like WHAT THE FUCK, LIFE." If the outburst had been more general fate freakout and less specifically mean at Wilf even, that'd have been an improvement for me.

[pextheunalive.livejournal.com]

The funniest thing about the whole Wilf-saving situation is that in part one, the Doctor suspects something is up with Wilf, says there's more to him than there appears to be, and so on. Then, in part two, when it turns out there IS more to Wilf and that he was the one who was going to cause Ten's death, Ten acts all surprised, like it came out of nowhere. Where did that suspicion disappear to, eh? lol

[airie-fairy.livejournal.com]

I thought it was more anger that that was the secret than surprise in general that there was a secret.

[moljn.livejournal.com]

I liked the tantrum, for the reason you said and adding that hey, he thought he'd cheated death somehow, he was all elated at being alive and then Wilf started tap-tap-tap-tapping. DT broke my heart, then.

And, it helps that Ten being an arse doesn't bother me. That said, I do feel really bad for Wilf; he must feel terrible, even though if it hadn't been him it would just have been the unknown scientist in there.

[airie-fairy.livejournal.com]

I think the thing I liked best about the freakout was David pulled it off so goddamn well. I was too busy going "oooh" really to think anything. And I'm probably not as bothered by the dip into meanness as I should be? I felt really bad for Wilf, and if they could've done it without it that'd be fab by me, but it didn't fill me with rage or hate.

[sabotabby]

You know, I didn't even mind Donna getting married (okay, I minded it a bit) so much as I minded the lottery ticket thing. DUDE SHE WAS MIND-RAPED I KNOW IT WAS TO SAVE HER LIFE BUT MAYBE YOU COULD HAVE FIXED THAT TOO. Rather than just her financial situation?

I like the Susan theory best, then the Romana theory, and the idea that it was his mother is just silly.

[nusuth.livejournal.com]

here from who_daily...

I find that it helps if you look at the Donna financial situation thing differently. I mean, the Doctor borrowed the money for the ticket from Geoffrey Noble right? So in a sense, he's giving her a present with a meaning rather than just money, since he's essentially giving her something from her father.

Anyway, it makes me happy to think that :D (or well, bittersweet since she'll never know, but it's a step up from "enraged")

[moljn.livejournal.com]

I'm so with you on your last point. To counter my disappointment, I'm just going to try to focus on the things I liked, and since I like angst and don't mind Ten being an arse, at least I'll have an easier time of that than some.

But yeah, I think I'll always be a little bitter.

[mhr-kara.livejournal.com]

i was disappointed that Donna didn't do much. except get married. oh well. :)

[stoplookingup.livejournal.com]

Also, why was the idea of shooting the Master's machine so very hard for the genius Doctor to come up with? He actually needed to get eye signals from a weeping angel before he did it, despite the fact that destroying the machinery is his number-one go-to plan in nearly every situation. Like, ten minutes earlier on the cactus-people's ship.

[eruvadhril.livejournal.com]

Because if he'd just shot the machine in the first place there would be no DRAMA!!!!!!!!!! He could have blown up the machine immediately after- hell, before- the Master did his cloney trick, and saved everyone a lot of hassle. Basically, it's an Idiot Plot. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IdiotPlot)