Riona (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rionaleonhart) wrote2022-04-16 12:29 pm
rionaleonhart) wrote2022-04-16 12:29 pm
Entry tags:
You're A Very Violent Young Woman.
I've had a complicated relationship with Doctor Who. I absolutely loved the Ninth Doctor's series in 2005, but the show was never really what I wanted it to be again after that, and I watched in increasing dissatisfaction for the next seven years before it finally occurred to me that I should probably just stop watching.
Even if I mainly associate Doctor Who with frustration, I did really enjoy that 2005 series, and I haven't rewatched it in a very long time; I made a brief effort in 2013 but only got through the first two episodes. It's time to revisit the Ninth Doctor's run at last! We're up to 'Father's Day', which had me in absolute floods of tears when I was sixteen, although I managed to hold it together this time around.
I was worried that the Ninth Doctor's series wouldn't hold up, that maybe I got frustrated with later Doctor Who because I was longing for some imagined golden age that never really existed. But I'm enjoying it! On the whole, I think it strikes a fairly good balance of being dark and interesting while still being suitable for kids, although there's the occasional unfortunate moment where the writers go 'what do kids like? farts, right?'
I really like the 'World War Three' scene between Mickey and Jackie while Mickey's preparing to launch a missile at Downing Street, where Rose is trapped. Jackie says, 'I could stop you, you know,' and Mickey says, 'Then do it,' and they just stare at each other for a moment. Mickey doesn't want Rose to die either. But, with the world at stake, he can't choose to spare her under his own power; he needs someone to stop him.
If this series of Doctor Who came out today, I think Doctor/Rose would be a considerably less popular pairing, or at least a more divisive one. I'm glad it came out at a time when I could happily immerse myself in that ship without fear of judgement. Look, sometimes you just have to ship the bitter, traumatised alien with the young woman who helps him see the universe through fresh eyes, regardless of centuries-wide age gaps.
The Doctor and Rose touch each other a lot more than I remembered! They're constantly holding hands or putting an arm around each other. I also didn't remember how weird and claustrophobic their relationship could be; it particularly struck me in 'The Long Game', after Cathica leaves.
Doctor: That's her gone. Adam's given up. Looks like it's just you and me.
Rose: Yeah.
Doctor: Good.
There's something a bit unsettling about their dynamic. It's no wonder I liked them so much. Rose/Ten never worked for me, though, and I wonder whether it's because their relationship felt cuter and clearer-cut, without the discomfort and ambiguity of her dynamic with the Ninth Doctor. (I might be misremembering Rose's interactions with the Tenth Doctor, though; it's been a while!)
The Ninth Doctor is extremely screwed up! He's so angry, constantly pushing people away, constantly dismissive of everyone who isn't Rose; he values their lives, but he rarely values their input. I still find it fascinatingly horrifying that, with the loss of Gallifrey still raw, he picks Rose up and immediately shows her the destruction of her own planet. Trying to inflict his own trauma on her, so there'll be someone who understands him.
(I wasn't sure what icon to use for this post, but, thinking about it, it's got to be Patrick Jane. He and the Ninth Doctor share a lot of qualities: they're both energetic, compelling, dismissive, prone to connecting very strongly to a select handful of people, externally cheerful and absolutely dead inside.)
What a strange, interesting series. I'm glad to be revisiting it at last.
Even if I mainly associate Doctor Who with frustration, I did really enjoy that 2005 series, and I haven't rewatched it in a very long time; I made a brief effort in 2013 but only got through the first two episodes. It's time to revisit the Ninth Doctor's run at last! We're up to 'Father's Day', which had me in absolute floods of tears when I was sixteen, although I managed to hold it together this time around.
I was worried that the Ninth Doctor's series wouldn't hold up, that maybe I got frustrated with later Doctor Who because I was longing for some imagined golden age that never really existed. But I'm enjoying it! On the whole, I think it strikes a fairly good balance of being dark and interesting while still being suitable for kids, although there's the occasional unfortunate moment where the writers go 'what do kids like? farts, right?'
I really like the 'World War Three' scene between Mickey and Jackie while Mickey's preparing to launch a missile at Downing Street, where Rose is trapped. Jackie says, 'I could stop you, you know,' and Mickey says, 'Then do it,' and they just stare at each other for a moment. Mickey doesn't want Rose to die either. But, with the world at stake, he can't choose to spare her under his own power; he needs someone to stop him.
If this series of Doctor Who came out today, I think Doctor/Rose would be a considerably less popular pairing, or at least a more divisive one. I'm glad it came out at a time when I could happily immerse myself in that ship without fear of judgement. Look, sometimes you just have to ship the bitter, traumatised alien with the young woman who helps him see the universe through fresh eyes, regardless of centuries-wide age gaps.
The Doctor and Rose touch each other a lot more than I remembered! They're constantly holding hands or putting an arm around each other. I also didn't remember how weird and claustrophobic their relationship could be; it particularly struck me in 'The Long Game', after Cathica leaves.
Doctor: That's her gone. Adam's given up. Looks like it's just you and me.
Rose: Yeah.
Doctor: Good.
There's something a bit unsettling about their dynamic. It's no wonder I liked them so much. Rose/Ten never worked for me, though, and I wonder whether it's because their relationship felt cuter and clearer-cut, without the discomfort and ambiguity of her dynamic with the Ninth Doctor. (I might be misremembering Rose's interactions with the Tenth Doctor, though; it's been a while!)
The Ninth Doctor is extremely screwed up! He's so angry, constantly pushing people away, constantly dismissive of everyone who isn't Rose; he values their lives, but he rarely values their input. I still find it fascinatingly horrifying that, with the loss of Gallifrey still raw, he picks Rose up and immediately shows her the destruction of her own planet. Trying to inflict his own trauma on her, so there'll be someone who understands him.
(I wasn't sure what icon to use for this post, but, thinking about it, it's got to be Patrick Jane. He and the Ninth Doctor share a lot of qualities: they're both energetic, compelling, dismissive, prone to connecting very strongly to a select handful of people, externally cheerful and absolutely dead inside.)
What a strange, interesting series. I'm glad to be revisiting it at last.
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In which you have already demonstrated better self-awareness than most Dr Who fans will ever manage ;)
It's a shame Noel Clarke turned out to be such a hideous piece of shit because Mickey was a deeply underrated character.
I still find it fascinatingly horrifying that, with the loss of Gallifrey still raw, he picks Rose up and immediately shows her the destruction of her own planet. Trying to inflict his own trauma on her, so there'll be someone who understands him.
I have to say that passed me by at the time but in hindsight yes! Trauma dumping on a first date!
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(Anonymous) 2022-04-16 03:33 pm (UTC)(link)I think with both the Classic and New series, it's always been the case that because there's so much change within cast, ideas etc that most people prefer one part of the show and potentially have other bits that they really dislike. One of the more unique aspects of the show, I think, given the leading actor keeps changing.
I haven't seen the New series in a long time, but I think that first series is probably the strongest altogether as a season, on balance. It's a shame we only got one series with Eccleston. I remember getting quite frustrated with Rose, though I think that partially is me going "ugh, modern series, now we're going to have a love subplot, aren't we?" and being pleasantly surprised in the first series, then when the Tenth Doctor mopes like anything about her in later series, getting rather cross about it. Confirmation bias, I suppose? Though I suppose part of it is, again, that TV has changed, and you're expected to have much more emotional attachment to those main characters nowadays. The problem is when you bring that into a series with as long a history - and as long a space for later episodes - is that it starts to look like you care about some companions more than others, and that bothers me a bit.
A few years ago, Twitch (the video game streaming website, that has now branched out into general streaming... which I find is quite funny given it's back to what JTV was originally like, but that's another story!) got a license to stream nearly all of the Classic series of Doctor Who; it was a 24/7 channel that ran a set of serials 3 times a day to cater for different timezones. It wasn't all of them: there were some rights issues concerning the Daleks, and they skipped any entirely missing serial, or any serial that had missing episodes (including if they'd been DVD released with animated reconstruction of the missing episode(s)). It went on for over a month. It picked up a lot of younger, modern Doctor Who fans who were curious about the original series, and it was really interesting to see a more modern take on some of the companions and storylines. (Also to consider how weird some of the ideas are: The Gunfighters, a 60s Hartnell serial, has this song that is constantly repeated through it about the story, and it was absolutely love it or hate it!) Plus, they ran a trailer for each Doctor before the stream ran, so it created a lot of memes because people who were interested in watching the stream saw those trailers quite a lot. (You can see them here is you're interested, they're only around a minute each: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVPn-CCocXcscOMvNjp7KlQ/videos). I found it fascinating as it also got people to look at the Hartnell and Troughton eras (some of my favourites); I find that sometimes where people do feel like going back they see that both of those are in black and white and think it's just a step too far. Although of course it goes without saying that with a show like Doctor Who nobody should ever be obliged to watch every single episode/era!
You talk about Rose and the Doctor potentially not being as shipped if it were to air nowadays, maybe that's true. I wonder what fandom would make of the Second Doctor and Jamie relationship these days (I tried to find some clips and only really came up with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COFcyo8Qf1c)
There's also a user called Babelcolour who makes some really nice Doctor Who content, including a tribute for each Doctor era in a sort of music video style. They do this for both the New and Classic series, so you might be interested. I quite like them: https://www.youtube.com/c/BabelColour/videos
As for when I stopped watching Doctor Who? Somewhere through Matt Smith's run. I liked his rendition of the Doctor, but didn't like the way the story was going as such and needlessly overcomplicating everything.
-timydamonkey, who is geeking out
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It's a shame Noel Clarke turned out to be such a hideous piece of shit because Mickey was a deeply underrated character.
Very true! It doesn't seem like there's much to Mickey in the first episode, but he gets some great moments as the show goes on.
The Doctor's lost everyone else from his species, he feels alone in the universe, and his way of feeling less alone is to screw someone else up in the same way! It's extremely alarming and I'm into it.
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Very true! It's interesting to see how divided opinions are over Doctors; it seems like every Doctor has some passionate fans and some people who really dislike them.
then when the Tenth Doctor mopes like anything about her in later series, getting rather cross about it.
Having the Doctor mope about Rose after her departure was such a bad decision. I like Rose, but it's Doctor Who; companions are going to drop in and out, and setting one companion up as The Most Special Companion, The Doctor Is Inconsolable After Losing Her is doing a disservice to all the companions who follow her.
I liked his rendition of the Doctor, but didn't like the way the story was going as such and needlessly overcomplicating everything.
I have a similar attitude to Matt Smith's run. I thought Matt Smith was wonderful as the Doctor; he's actually more the Doctor in my head than Christopher Eccleston, even if Eccleston's run is my favourite overall. But I wasn't a fan of the showrunning in Smith's era, sadly.
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(Anonymous) 2022-04-16 08:58 pm (UTC)(link)Yes, pretty much! It gets more split than that too. A good example is Colin Baker, a Doctor who was pretty much universally disliked because of the characterisation/writing. You also had people claiming he was a bad actor. Then Big Finish got involved and did audio stories after the show was cancelled with surviving cast (different Doctors etc). The smallish portion of fanbase who followed the Big Finish stuff will tell you he's an excellent Doctor - when given good material, like the Big Finish stuff is. So you get the people who hate his TV stuff but love his Big Finish stuff. It's interesting.
Yes, that is my opinion on Rose. Also I felt Martha was treated very badly as a result of the mopiness storyline which is deeply unfair, and it meant the character never really got a chance to develop (and I feel it made some new fans dislike her for not being Rose). You don't have to treat all companions in the same way necessarily, you can diversify their relationship to him (as an example, I find Turlough one of the more interesting companions in that he comes in with a story arc of having been ordered to kill the Doctor), but you can't proclaim one is more important to the Doctor than the others. I know I use more Classic Doctor Who examples here than new ones but they are what I generally remember the best!
I had concerns about Moffat becoming showrunner and sadly, I think it just proved it for me. Moffat is had written some excellent standalone episodes, and probably was the consistently best writer by quite a bit with regards to Doctor Who output. But all of those stories were complicated - which is fine for a single story. But applying that to story arcs and general showrunning just makes things complex for the sake of being complex which is alienating. Sadly, that's my view on what happened.
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I'm probably very unfair towards Eleven, but I never really got on board with him because I really disliked Moffat's run of the show and he dared come replace my beloved Ten (I know, I know, but you can't argue with emotions).
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Oh noooooo! That must be an incredibly alarming development if you don't know it's coming.
I'm probably very unfair towards Eleven, but I never really got on board with him because I really disliked Moffat's run of the show and he dared come replace my beloved Ten (I know, I know, but you can't argue with emotions).
I can't blame you at all, because I never really forgave Ten for replacing my beloved Nine! (I warmed to him a bit more in Donna's series, though.) Then I loved Eleven (although I wasn't a fan of the showrunning) and disliked Twelve, so it's possible my feelings about each new Doctor are entirely dictated by my feelings about the one they're replacing.
(and never ever wanted Donna to leave as a companion)
She was so good! My absolute favourite companion. She worked really well opposite Ten. I don't think she could have been a companion to Nine; either he'd have thrown her out of the TARDIS or she'd have stormed out, and it would have been an enormous loss to us all.
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I think that probably makes sense about the replacements! I really did love Nine, but I always considered Ten to be my Doctor, so I forgave him fairly quickly.
Hahahaha oh yes, Nine and Donna would have butted heads so much! But yes, she was amazing with Ten. I really loved Rose and Ten and didn't think I would ever have another companion I felt so strongly about - and I think that's fair, since she was the only companion I'd known of at that point! - but Donna absolutely changed my mind on that. (Martha definitely did not get a fair shake.)
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I've stuck with the series. I really, REALLY recommend you watch the Peter Capaldi episodes. A real renaissance period. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for Jodie Whittaker's Doctor ;(
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I haven't heard much positivity about Whittaker's run, which is a shame. (Maybe I'd love her, though, given my history of alternation between liking and disliking Doctors!)