Doctor Who: "The Doctor's Wife"
May. 15th, 2011 10:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizbeeYes, show, this is how you do it.
Pretty much from the first scene, I was Toph-facing. And by the end, I was Toph-facing but also crying. And in between, I lolled at bits and was a bit scared at others. In other words, the perfect Doctor Who.
(Toph-face, for those who aren't yet familiar:
So, yes.)
I think maybe this is one I'll need to watch a second time, or maybe even a third, just to find words for all my thoughts. Randomly:
- It starts off in a junkyard! Meta!
- It's a junkyard of TARDISes! "All my sisters are dead, and these are their corpses."
- Seeing the TARDIS embodied as a human with a voice just drives home how alive and wonderful she is. And I'm so, so glad that the TARDIS coral scene from "Journey's End" was cut, because creating a long-lived, sentient and intelligent entity, and then giving her to two people with short human lifespans would have been sadistic.
- I'M JUST PROTECTIVE OF MY TARDIS, OKAY?
- And she is protective of her Doctor. So that's all right.
- However, I am not sure that I can picture, say, One or Two or Three or Five or Six or Eight or Nine addressing the TARDIS as "Sexy". Four would, of course, he did kiss her that time. And Seven did all the time, and then Ace overheard and said that was sexist and objectifying, and Seven said that was very heteronormative of her, and Ace said, no, ships are always women and the TARDIS is a "her", and Seven mentioned that at some point in the future that he absolutely did not engineer himself, the TARDIS will be the Brig. And then they went to blow stuff up. It was great.
- Amy's "Did you wish really hard" = MANY LOLS.
- I feel bad for Idris, dead before the opening credits. KIDS! DON'T DO DRUGS OR STEAL TARDIS SOULS!
- So, okay, the plot itself wasn't amazing. But I feel, between this and the Time Lord child in "Day of the Moon" that the ground is being prepared for the return of the Time Lords, so I'm willing to forego a bit of epic in exchange for heart.
- Having said that, it is natural, of course, that the TARDIS would be full of cheap corridors, but I kind of wish we'd had less of Amy and Rory and more of TARDris and the Doctor. And, yes, I just expressed a wish for less surreal psychological torture, that's how good this episode was.
- "You want to be forgiven." I love Amy's recognition of the Doctor's issues, and her telling him to try to avoid getting emotional. And she knows he destroyed the Time Lords! I think, though I've lost track, this makes her the first New Who companion who knows that detail. -
- Relatedly, I liked the way the Doctor just became very quiet and sad when he was angry. And increasingly flat and resigned. "Another Ood I couldn't save."
- And then his farewell to TARDris, so sad and bittersweet. She's not dead, just different.
- THE TARDIS STOLE THE DOCTOR. SHE WANTED TO SEE THE UNIVERSE, SO SHE STOLE A TIME LORD! I LOVE HER.
- PUSH TO OPEN. They truly are an old married couple.
- Bunkbeds? Oh, Doctor.
- So does the Doctor have a bedroom? MILLIONS OF FIC WRITERS NEED TO KNOW!
- "I like biting. It's like kissing, but with a winner." Suranne Jones is a bit great, isn't she? She also played the Mona Lisa in The Sarah Jane Adventures. Maybe one day she can play a person in her own right, not the embodiment of something. But it's okay if she doesn't, because she's pretty amazing.
- Many points to Gaiman for a script that sparkled, dialogue-wise. SUCH A REFRESHING CHANGE AFTER LAST WEEK.
- Rory is the pretty one.
- Lots of lovely inversions of assumptions and fanon and stuff. Finally, as if it wasn't totally clear already, Time Lords can change sex when they regenerate. Humans are bigger on the inside. The TARDIS stole the Doctor. Even the Doctor's assumptions -- she archives his old console rooms.
In conclusion: HOW YOU SO GREAT, SHOW? KEEP GOING WITH THAT. I LIKE IT.
Pretty much from the first scene, I was Toph-facing. And by the end, I was Toph-facing but also crying. And in between, I lolled at bits and was a bit scared at others. In other words, the perfect Doctor Who.
(Toph-face, for those who aren't yet familiar:
So, yes.)
I think maybe this is one I'll need to watch a second time, or maybe even a third, just to find words for all my thoughts. Randomly:
- It starts off in a junkyard! Meta!
- It's a junkyard of TARDISes! "All my sisters are dead, and these are their corpses."
- Seeing the TARDIS embodied as a human with a voice just drives home how alive and wonderful she is. And I'm so, so glad that the TARDIS coral scene from "Journey's End" was cut, because creating a long-lived, sentient and intelligent entity, and then giving her to two people with short human lifespans would have been sadistic.
- I'M JUST PROTECTIVE OF MY TARDIS, OKAY?
- And she is protective of her Doctor. So that's all right.
- However, I am not sure that I can picture, say, One or Two or Three or Five or Six or Eight or Nine addressing the TARDIS as "Sexy". Four would, of course, he did kiss her that time. And Seven did all the time, and then Ace overheard and said that was sexist and objectifying, and Seven said that was very heteronormative of her, and Ace said, no, ships are always women and the TARDIS is a "her", and Seven mentioned that at some point in the future that he absolutely did not engineer himself, the TARDIS will be the Brig. And then they went to blow stuff up. It was great.
- Amy's "Did you wish really hard" = MANY LOLS.
- I feel bad for Idris, dead before the opening credits. KIDS! DON'T DO DRUGS OR STEAL TARDIS SOULS!
- So, okay, the plot itself wasn't amazing. But I feel, between this and the Time Lord child in "Day of the Moon" that the ground is being prepared for the return of the Time Lords, so I'm willing to forego a bit of epic in exchange for heart.
- Having said that, it is natural, of course, that the TARDIS would be full of cheap corridors, but I kind of wish we'd had less of Amy and Rory and more of TARDris and the Doctor. And, yes, I just expressed a wish for less surreal psychological torture, that's how good this episode was.
- "You want to be forgiven." I love Amy's recognition of the Doctor's issues, and her telling him to try to avoid getting emotional. And she knows he destroyed the Time Lords! I think, though I've lost track, this makes her the first New Who companion who knows that detail. -
- Relatedly, I liked the way the Doctor just became very quiet and sad when he was angry. And increasingly flat and resigned. "Another Ood I couldn't save."
- And then his farewell to TARDris, so sad and bittersweet. She's not dead, just different.
- THE TARDIS STOLE THE DOCTOR. SHE WANTED TO SEE THE UNIVERSE, SO SHE STOLE A TIME LORD! I LOVE HER.
- PUSH TO OPEN. They truly are an old married couple.
- Bunkbeds? Oh, Doctor.
- So does the Doctor have a bedroom? MILLIONS OF FIC WRITERS NEED TO KNOW!
- "I like biting. It's like kissing, but with a winner." Suranne Jones is a bit great, isn't she? She also played the Mona Lisa in The Sarah Jane Adventures. Maybe one day she can play a person in her own right, not the embodiment of something. But it's okay if she doesn't, because she's pretty amazing.
- Many points to Gaiman for a script that sparkled, dialogue-wise. SUCH A REFRESHING CHANGE AFTER LAST WEEK.
- Rory is the pretty one.
- Lots of lovely inversions of assumptions and fanon and stuff. Finally, as if it wasn't totally clear already, Time Lords can change sex when they regenerate. Humans are bigger on the inside. The TARDIS stole the Doctor. Even the Doctor's assumptions -- she archives his old console rooms.
In conclusion: HOW YOU SO GREAT, SHOW? KEEP GOING WITH THAT. I LIKE IT.
