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rabid1stOkay, I managed to see the episode. And I'm not saying it put me to sleep, but I did fall asleep and I had nightmares, too.
Das Boot! Or maybe not. Maybe Lifeboat! Anyway, I thought that the episode was very tight and interesting. Definitely not sleep inducing, I actually did have nightmares afterward, but they were about the finale. And I blame a certain chicken pot pie for those. It thought it was interesting for a Doctor Who episode because we didn't really ever see a monster. I don't know if we have done an episode like that since the early days of WHO. And the whole threat was only that the Doctor was the one who could stop it. It targetted him because he was clever. RTD gives us a really dissectible peek into the Doctor psychology and his stance as a God-Figure to humanity. Not hardly, it seems!
The advertising was very interesting because it read, "The Doctor faces his greatest fear." So, I spent a little time wondering about the nature of that fear. I had purposed earlier in this journal that he would be helpless to help people. And that is pretty much what happened...but there was a bit more to it than that...we see that the Doctor is targetted as an outsider, not human. He finds he really can't relate to the people he's trying to save...and after he tried so very hard to relate to them earlier. And again, it was a human being noticing something quite small about him that saved the day. And he didn't even remember her name. I'm sure she did introduce herself when she started her flight explanation but just like the passengers I wasn't really listening to her.
I can see the Doctor's psychology being tested in this...he is helpless to save people...they have to work out how to save him...he is different and feeling superior and yet is probably targetted by the alien and DEFINITELY targetted by the people for his differences. And he simply doesn't know how to really relate to people even though he is obviously trying his best to relate to them. I see him as the lonely angel here...the perpetual outsider. His people didn't understand him or trust him and neither do his chosen adoptive people. And again...I think...he needs Rose to help him become a little more human if he means to go on being our guiding mentor. You can see where the companion acts as his bridge to the natives, allowing him more scope to be alien and yet familiar and trusted.
I do wonder what became of his long-standing ability to get strangers to trust him. I also wondered how much of that was down to the companion...remembering far back to the First Doctor who had a terrible time with people.
Now, on to our Rose. There she was...behind him. Which means she is focusing on him...and hitting Donna by mistake. He says her name...but it is part of a list of his companions and so less meaningful. He may well have started with her because she was his first companion...pressing through to the TARDIS as his constant companion. I must say though, just having him say her name gave my heart a lurch. And he did refer to her in the context of lost love. "Single, not by choice," Sky says and goes on to say her lover has left her and gone to another galaxy for "space." The Doctor is directly responding to the question, "I reckon that's enough space, don't you?" And he says he had a friend that went to another universe. The implication there is two fold...1) his friend is like her friend...leaving him single, not by choice. and 2) that another galaxy isn't really enough space. He is trying in the complete context of the episode to find things in common with the passengers. This is what he has in common with Sky...they are both abandoned lovers.
People do make a big deal out of the use of the word "friend" to describe Rose but it is in keeping with the actual root meaning of the word to refer to both Rose and Donna as his friends. A friend is simply someone you love. You can love them like a sister or you can love them like a man loves a woman. They are still your friend until they are made something more than that. The question of what he might call Rose is one I already addressed in fiction...and came up with "sweetheart"...but truly they were not lovers...nor married...nor culturally committed in anyway. He struggled in S2 to put a word to her...when asked in Idiot's Lantern if he knew her he tries to convey what she means to him and can't find the right word. She is Rose...his "someone"...his friend.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology | Date: 1996
friend OE. frēond, pl. frīend = OS. friund (Du. vriend), OHG. friunt (G. freund), ON. (with change of decl. in the sg.) frændi, Goth. frijōnds; Gmc. prp. formation on *frijōjan (whence OE. frēoġan, Goth. frijōn love), f. *frijaz beloved,
It literally means...my beloved.
Rae
Das Boot! Or maybe not. Maybe Lifeboat! Anyway, I thought that the episode was very tight and interesting. Definitely not sleep inducing, I actually did have nightmares afterward, but they were about the finale. And I blame a certain chicken pot pie for those. It thought it was interesting for a Doctor Who episode because we didn't really ever see a monster. I don't know if we have done an episode like that since the early days of WHO. And the whole threat was only that the Doctor was the one who could stop it. It targetted him because he was clever. RTD gives us a really dissectible peek into the Doctor psychology and his stance as a God-Figure to humanity. Not hardly, it seems!
The advertising was very interesting because it read, "The Doctor faces his greatest fear." So, I spent a little time wondering about the nature of that fear. I had purposed earlier in this journal that he would be helpless to help people. And that is pretty much what happened...but there was a bit more to it than that...we see that the Doctor is targetted as an outsider, not human. He finds he really can't relate to the people he's trying to save...and after he tried so very hard to relate to them earlier. And again, it was a human being noticing something quite small about him that saved the day. And he didn't even remember her name. I'm sure she did introduce herself when she started her flight explanation but just like the passengers I wasn't really listening to her.
I can see the Doctor's psychology being tested in this...he is helpless to save people...they have to work out how to save him...he is different and feeling superior and yet is probably targetted by the alien and DEFINITELY targetted by the people for his differences. And he simply doesn't know how to really relate to people even though he is obviously trying his best to relate to them. I see him as the lonely angel here...the perpetual outsider. His people didn't understand him or trust him and neither do his chosen adoptive people. And again...I think...he needs Rose to help him become a little more human if he means to go on being our guiding mentor. You can see where the companion acts as his bridge to the natives, allowing him more scope to be alien and yet familiar and trusted.
I do wonder what became of his long-standing ability to get strangers to trust him. I also wondered how much of that was down to the companion...remembering far back to the First Doctor who had a terrible time with people.
Now, on to our Rose. There she was...behind him. Which means she is focusing on him...and hitting Donna by mistake. He says her name...but it is part of a list of his companions and so less meaningful. He may well have started with her because she was his first companion...pressing through to the TARDIS as his constant companion. I must say though, just having him say her name gave my heart a lurch. And he did refer to her in the context of lost love. "Single, not by choice," Sky says and goes on to say her lover has left her and gone to another galaxy for "space." The Doctor is directly responding to the question, "I reckon that's enough space, don't you?" And he says he had a friend that went to another universe. The implication there is two fold...1) his friend is like her friend...leaving him single, not by choice. and 2) that another galaxy isn't really enough space. He is trying in the complete context of the episode to find things in common with the passengers. This is what he has in common with Sky...they are both abandoned lovers.
People do make a big deal out of the use of the word "friend" to describe Rose but it is in keeping with the actual root meaning of the word to refer to both Rose and Donna as his friends. A friend is simply someone you love. You can love them like a sister or you can love them like a man loves a woman. They are still your friend until they are made something more than that. The question of what he might call Rose is one I already addressed in fiction...and came up with "sweetheart"...but truly they were not lovers...nor married...nor culturally committed in anyway. He struggled in S2 to put a word to her...when asked in Idiot's Lantern if he knew her he tries to convey what she means to him and can't find the right word. She is Rose...his "someone"...his friend.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology | Date: 1996
friend OE. frēond, pl. frīend = OS. friund (Du. vriend), OHG. friunt (G. freund), ON. (with change of decl. in the sg.) frændi, Goth. frijōnds; Gmc. prp. formation on *frijōjan (whence OE. frēoġan, Goth. frijōn love), f. *frijaz beloved,
It literally means...my beloved.
Rae
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Friend = Beloved... God, I love the English language
Date: 2008-06-15 05:35 pm (UTC)It's actually not just in English
Date: 2008-06-15 05:48 pm (UTC)Ami and Amor
Phili
To love
And you do love your friends. Or you should. And you know what...the Doctor does change the word to convey the TYPE of friend he's looking for with DONNA...I want a MATE...a pal. There he doesn't say friend...perhaps because he understands the word to have many meanings.
The context is the thing...and he is drawing a direct parallel with Sky being "single, not by choice." He's single, not by choice, too, since his friend went to another universe.
Rae
Re: It's actually not just in English
Date: 2008-06-15 06:16 pm (UTC)But I get what you are saying. Never thought to look at his choice of words (mate vs friend) in a canon in-story context before. That would be interesting. I always just thought it was something like a Freudian slip. That he does want a mate, and not just a casual fling. He wants Rose.
But that doesn't make much sense, does it, since he's talking to Donna? And it's obvious he meant "mate" in the platonic sense and was setting some pretty clear boundaries between himself and Donna with that word. Hmm, I think I like your explanation better.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-15 06:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-15 07:20 pm (UTC)What was your take on the preview?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-15 08:29 pm (UTC)I hadn't thought of it like that at the time, but she counts as a friend who left him for another universe. I wonder if she needed some time away too.
Then again, he called Rose his "Friend" when Martha first come aboard the TARDIS.
Shakespeare Code: I mean some friends, traveling alongside. I had - There was recently a friend of mine. Rose, her name was, Rose. And... we were together. Anyway.
and in: The Runaway Bride
The Doctor looks up from the controls and his eyes fall to the garment in Donna's hands. His face falls.
THE DOCTOR (quietly)
That's my friend's.
((from Who Transcripts [2005+]. Wonderful people. Thankz.))
So friend is probably what he'd settled on for what to call his Rose (( at least thats what he called her to other people. He wouldn't call her his lover, even if she was, not to strangers or even to friends.))
So he was talking about Rose. ^.^ Just making you aware of the Romana connection. My Shippy heart believes Rose!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-15 09:03 pm (UTC)I find the "friend" term incredibly touching and it doesn't cheapen their relationship in any way. In fact the friendship was what mattered most to him, and I suspect he thinks of the word "mate" as a rather hearty friendship, a bit less close. He makes "friend" into a beautiful expression of love. Many of the male-to-male comradely friendships in literature from the classics through to Sam and Frodo in LOTR are as deep as any relationship gets, but sex seems quite irrelevant to them.
This delicacy of language is a hallmark of RTD's writing. In TRB he gave us the incredibly touching, "I had a friend...she had this family," an almost throwaway statement of his alienation that says volumes about his state of mind.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-16 12:11 am (UTC)And it wouldn't be like him at all to discuss his deeper emotions with strangers...he can barely discuss them with people he knows quite well. I think that it is very hard for him to express what he feels for Rose, simply because it is new to him. I don't think he's been in love before...I think that he has loved people...his family...etc. But I don't think he's been in love in that transformative way until Rose came along. And he has trouble with any expression of the feelings he has...they rather choke him up and get tangled around.
Luckily...Rose knew what he felt without him having to tell her.
One of the things that struck me in the trailer clip though was Rose's saying she was once like Donna. And I wonder if Rose has put a, he's moved on, interpretation on the Doctor not responding to her frantic calls. It would make for an interesting misunderstanding if, for once, he had to explain himself to her. And it would allow a little airing of the emotional side that we don't normally get if Rose simply assumes he's gone on with his "same old life."
She did see Sarah Jane and Reinette and she's no doubt been lectured by Mickey and Jackie about moving on with her own life. And she was told by the Doctor that there was no hope. I like to think she continues to believe in him even so. And I honestly can't imagine her marrying someone else...even if she doesn't expect him to ever return for her. Simply because it would be dishonest...like what happened with the Doctor and Martha...and I think Rose knows that she would never really be able to give her complete love to another. It would be unfair and hurtful and she's not the sort of person to hurt someone just for companionship, I think.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-16 12:01 am (UTC)I don't think it would make sense to go back as far as Romana for a reference...even though I did point it out in another forum.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-15 09:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-16 12:26 am (UTC)I really liked how unsettling this episode was. I can't recall a time when the Doctor has ever been turned on quite like that, and not been able to talk his way out of it. As you say, maybe that's a big part of the companion's role - helping bridge the gap between the Doctor and humanity. I know I kept wishing that Donna was there several times during the episode...but that's the whole point. Well, that and giving CT a bit of time off before she gets to carry the show next week. ;)
I really felt terrified for the Doctor. To lose his ability to communicate in any way...can't speak, can't move. And I noticed that he is very specifically turned *away* from the other passengers, so although we, the viewers, can see the emotions playing out in his eyes and tiny facial movements (fab acting by DT, as usual), they only see his back. He has to sit there, completely helpless to events...I can certainly see that being his worst fears come to life - first shunned for being "different" and then to be completely at the mercy of the others.
I never knew that the precise definition of "friend" is "beloved". Makes sense, though. I've never had a problem with the Doctor using the term "friend" for Rose. I mean...there's really no word to describe what they are to each other, and that's probably the closest thing. Donna is very much a "mate", a "buddy". He wanted Martha to be more like that, but well...
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-16 02:05 am (UTC)So the complications in that love...are what the Doctor is dealing with re: Rose...but I feel that the context he tends to give his "friend" fits more into the idea of "perfect Rose" that he writes in his journal of impossible things. It is telling that in that journal he also struggles with his words. And when he's going on to Donna..."a mate...A mate..." it never does dawn on him to say "friend."
But certainly, once they travel with him he calls them his "friend" and I also like the way he stumbles over this word in Smith & Jones when he's talking about people traveling with him...and Rose. I think it is most accurate to say that he doesn't really have a word for Rose, as when he is pressed he chokes up on it all. And this is very fitting with the idea that he's never been in love before...which is one of the underlying tenants of RTD's storyline.
And yes, I know he's been a dad and had a family and been married...but none of those things actually imply that he's been in love. People romanticising his former wives strike me as people who are paying no attention at all to what the Doctor is actually saying...like...when he says he thought a man was happy because his wife is away (if he means the man is gay or not...is immaterial). Or when he refers to Mrs. Saxon as "a beard." Again we have this huge leap toward "gay" which bounces right over the more obvious answer...alien. And the next most obvious answer...the MASTER!
I mean...honestly...what are the odds he's fallen in love with a human woman? Slim to none! So she is there to give him social leverage to win the election...she's a beard. <<--One of the things, that frustrates me. Sorry! I know you don't argue for it, per se.
I am just continually frustrated by people overlooking the obvious answer to why the Doctor can't muster his words for things...he's an alien and this is all new to him. He probably doesn't view marriage or romance or children in the same light as humans do in any case. And the idea that he would be heartbroken over Rose living a, as far as he knows, perfectly normal and happy life with her family...is a real stretch. He only really understood, via Martha, I think...that people might cling to forlorn hope for a very long time, even with no chance for happiness.
Certainly...when Sarah Jane presented that idea to him he was rather dismissive of it. And he did think that Rose would rather be with her Mum than him in Doomsday. He was definitely heartbroken...but he still was presenting the fiction of how they would both just go back to their "same old lives." Rose is the one that countered that with a joke...and simultaneously told him there was no chance of her going back to what SHE had been. I am hoping that he's coming to the place where he doesn't want to be what HE has been.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-16 09:00 pm (UTC)And that right there is the best explanation I've heard yet as to why we got poor pining Martha as the companion to follow Rose. I never thought of her as a parallel for Rose in that sense before. We all know that Rose is as lost without him as he is without her, but he is really terribly good at pretending (or truly not knowing) this isn't so.