New Who: Waters of Mars

[lizbee]

Based on general LJ buzz, and my own bad mood, I wasn't going to watch this. But then suburbannoir was going to watch it, and I was like, "PEEPS CAN'T BE WATCHING STUFF WITHOUT ME!" So, for the first time ever, the House o' Squid watched some New Who as a family.



Greatly to my own surprise, I really liked this. It sort of reminded me of "The Silurians" -- a central abstract moral argument, and very little child appeal. Adelaide and the Brigadier both reject the Doctor's authority, both with fatal results. I'm not sure that Adelaide was right; who is to say that her granddaughter wouldn't have grown up to become who she did, who's to say that their descendants wouldn't have achieved greatness? But could she risk it?

I was spoiled for Adelaide shooting herself, and I was going to be pissed that yet another older woman comes into the Doctor's orbit and then dies. But her suicide was a gesture of defiance against the Doctor's rejection of her agency; she's almost a symbol of all the companions who have gone before. Also I think she opened a fobwatch right before she pulled the trigger, and once she recovers from the post-regenerative trauma, Romana's going to be so pissed.

Even more to my surprise, I really liked the Hubristic Doctor sequence at the end. I do enjoy a bit of fatal hubris, and I thought this was very well played, right down to the hallucinatory appearance of the Odd of Christmas Yet To Come. (Note: piecesofalice and suburbannoir were less impressed. Probably they are also less biased.) If you haven't been paying attention for the last four seasons, it would seem to come out of nowhere, but the Doctor's been building up to this for a long time. I have chosen to pretend it was all intentional, yes. It's like watching the final breakdown before recovery can begin.

All that aside, I thought the plot and execution were really effective, and the monsters were genuinely scary until they started spraying water like hoses. I was going to have a shower before bed, but I've decided to put it off. Please don't mock me. Peter O'Brian was a bit fabulous, and I confess I always get a thrill out of hearing an Australian accent outside of its normal context.

The main fail, as I saw it, was that the monster we saw most of was the young woman of colour. This did better on those terms than previous stories -- survivors were a man and a woman of colour, and a white woman. But still, possessed!Maggie raised the spectre of old racist charicatures of black women. I'm not sure how that could have been avoided, except by radically changing the make-up, but it distracted me. Possibly this was just me, though.



Speaking of massive hubris that offends the gods: JMS has a commentary on "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars". I dread to imagine what it contains, but unless I am reassured that it consists of a forty-odd minute apology, I doubt I'll be watching it.

Comments

[ellen_fremedon]

But her suicide was a gesture of defiance against the Doctor's rejection of her agency; she's almost a symbol of all the companions who have gone before.

Yes. This, exactly.

I don't have enough faith left in Rusty to think that he's really going to follow through on the Doctor's hubris. But even a stab in that direction could be amazing. And redeem a lot of what's bothered me about this incarnation of the Doctor.

I really want to see the specials now.

[jesuswasbatman]

That JMS commentary does notably include a remark that historians who question Great People of the past are "shameful" and an admission that the whole historian scene was him getting back at all the faculty who he hated while he was doing a history degree (probably because they turned history into some kind of shameful investigation of the past as opposed to sharing the great legends as he expected).