Socks For Christmas...DW S4 Spoilers to the finale & beyond

[rabid1st]

Seriously, don't read this if you would prefer a pony...or suffer from any depressive illness or have people depending on you for hope and joy and life. It is all a matter of perspective again...you USA fans...and that's all I'm saying to you here...this is a different look at things.

I suppose it is a matter of what you believe in. And that is the problem I had with Joss Whedon's ultimate plan and the one I could have with RTD's. RTD could well be casting the Doctor as a God figure. And giving us his view of God...and what he feels is the purpose of "belief in God" in our lives.

He could be saying, THIS is what God is good for...in our ordinary lives. Elton Pope tells us that even if he touches you for a second...you pay a terrible price. Davros calls him "the Destroyer of Worlds"...and I think of Oppenheimer and his forged weapons...and I think about John Smith's Journal and how he describes what the Doctor does as "I set fire to them and they are up the chimney and away." That is what the Doctor does in ordinary people's lives...he forges them in fire. God as the spark, but not the purpose. And we see all his children filled with that spark as the flutter away on the wind at the almost end. It's not the end for them...for the companions...they have busy ordinary lives to get back to after all. And if they fail to get back to those lives...the Doctor forces the issue.

He did for Susan, exactly what he does for Rose. He says..."Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine." Here's a man for you to take my place...I've got to go help other people feel special now.

So...in the Unicorn and the Wasp...there is this terrible moment of foreshadowing. And I mentioned it when the show aired...this moment when Donna is sitting there with Agatha Christie and she's suddenly saying how much she loves the Doctor...how just being near him makes her think she's special. She wants to stay with him forever...but she can't. We know Donna is doomed at that moment, but she's more than doomed...she's duped...because the show will go on with another companion...so as she's talking...we know she's not special. Oh, but she will be remembered...just like all of us are remembered by our loved ones. That's what we get.

Many of us have groaned over the ceaseless and overblown devotion that the New Who companions have in the Doctor...they all fall desparately in love with him...and that's very distracting...and possibly to point. It is a religous fervor, taking them, distorting their view for a time. Just like Elton Pope's fandom in the Doctor kept him from enjoying his one room flat. I've said it's what allows ordinary people to trust him. And we can compare that to Martha, Jack, Mickey, Sarah Jane and even Rose...and we can take that view of the Old School people who I thought just didn't get it...and turn it around and see that they got it, but maybe weren't seeing the beauty that RTD saw in that idea. Bascially, that it wasn't being with the Doctor that made these people special...they were intrinsically special...because an ordinary person is the most important thing in the universe.

The reason I have trouble with this worldview...is that it isn't mine. Oh, I do think ordinary people are special. And I think it well could be true that Susan and David had a long happy life...that Rose learned to love a man who was almost but not quite the man she loved first...because THAT man couldn't tell her he loved her and maybe didn't love her at all but was just offering her a happy surge of being near him and was caught up in her parallel surge of god sparks. I mean, he was just as happy to just be with her and was given his small taste of Rose's divinity.

I think it could well be true that Donna Noble...like Agatha Christie...has a great mind and her adventures might bleed through in some form and make her feel better about her life now that the people in her life know that they really love her. And I think it is one of the uses of belief in God...to make ordinary people aware of their lives and be better people.

And yes...I am aware that hope for transformation...is often false hope and we should all just look at the simple things we have and appreciate them. And certainly ONE path to doing that is to accept that THIS is all there is. We can't look forward to a union with god but we could have a better job in Chiswick. And if God is an illusion and there is just nothing to him really but the spark he puts into people...then it doesn't matter if God is lonely. He should be lonely...he can't really be with people.

And I think the problem I have with all of this...lies within me. You all might have noticed that I believe in transformation. I have actually experienced it in my life, so I know transformation happens. And I have experienced tragedy and I know that happens too. And I have had lots and lots of plain old ordinary days that were worth treasuring.

But I think that fiction is the place to really show transformation to people...and how it comes about...which sorry to say...to JW (and possibly to RTD) isn't by magic. It isn't by the touch of God from beyond us...setting a spark to us...but from the spark inside connecting us all. And yes, I would have made the Lonely God one of us...because I think that's what a Lonely God needs. I think we all need to be a little closer to the divine...we should be lifted up...and the divine should step down.

I feel that atheist and fundamentalist views are much the same...in that they both make the divine something separate from us. So, of course, it makes sense that RTD would keep the Doctor separate from us, too. And try to turn things so that the people who almost touch the stars...come back to earth. And maybe it's not only that he doesn't SEE how to make the Doctor one of us...but that he truly believes the Doctor can't be one of us...because he's God.

I am not content with the idea that the Doctor goes on and on...through the cosmos...touching people...making them feel special...only to set them back down on the side of the road in Scotland and tell them to get a life. Because then he is still...the hand from above...ever the same, never changing. And we must put all of our trust in him knowing best...even though he is not one of us at all. How can he know, I wonder...how Donna, River, Susan, Elton's Girlfriend, Elton, 10.2, Rose, Jack and Sarah Jane should live...if he's never lived himself? Oh, well..he did live once...and he lost that and can never have it back...not now...because now he must act like the most lonely person in the universe. He must turn his back on what he needs...because the universe just can't get on without him...or the BBC can't.

There is a brief exchange on the beach...when Rose says that 10.2 isn't him and 10 says..."He needs you and in that he is very like me."

So, yeah...I would close the distance between the human and the spark of the divine...but that's just me. And I can see how RTD might think that it is better to have God offer you lies...let you believe you are special for a time and when you see that you are not able to walk with him...not quite THAT special...because he is always beyond you...you look around at what you have and accept it. This is what happened here...even to Rose who could capture the Time Vortex in her head and stride across dimensions and bring the spark of hope and life to others. The Doctor said once that if he believed in anything...he believed in her. And Old School people said that was an abstract belief...in all his companions. Of course, God believes in us, right?

We are all brilliant, right? In our own small way...oh, but not so wonderful that we can be him...or help him. At the almost end of JE...we almost see that he could maybe believe these people could heal him.

But no...he's still above us...still able to decide where we get off the merry-go-round...he still knows better...even Rose, who he needs, is still not able to touch him...because he's just not real.

Comments

[bubonicplague.livejournal.com]

Wordy wordy wordy wordy WORD. And this is the problem I have with Whedon, in that most of us hard-core fans, despite any shipping or character preferences - didn't want Buffy to have her prized "normal life". We wanted her to realize how extraordinary she was, and that being extraordinary, despite its consequences, is worth missing out on the white picket fence. But no, instead we got her foisting off her dubious powers (that were previously depicted in the season as some sort of rape) upon every tenth random girl. It's not only sorta sick, it's banal.

And then you contrast that with Rose's bit in PotW. It was a better life. She won me over forever with that, and I'd liked her before. She seemed the anti-Buffy, willingly embracing that which made her different, and fuck all the chips, and the chickens spinning insipidly in the rotisserie. Buffy would have embraced the damn chickens. She's a chicken-fucker.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

The reason you think I am good for any fandom...and thanks so much for saying so...is that I generally have hope.

And hope is exactly what we don't have in Joss Whedon's world...and it looks like in RTD's world, too. I mean...yes, there is always hope...that people will be okay and then age and die. But there is no hope that they will ever be more than people. Or that the Lonely God will ever be less than Lonely.

Buffy is one girl in a long line of virgin sacrifices and in the end...she just thought that was okay...and sacrificed some more girls so she wasn't fighting alone. It's socks for Christmas. It is someone telling you...this is all you can ever be...don't try to be more than you are or you'll just end up heartbroken.

It is, I'm sorry to say...a true atheist viewpoint...I don't mean to be prejudiced toward any belief...but it is intrinsic in the belief that "this is all there is" to believe that "this is all there is." That what you have is what you have...and it can maybe be a little better...but it can't be transformed. And embracing that makes everyone into a realist...which is the antithesis, in my opinion, of creativity.

Rae

[bubonicplague.livejournal.com]

The reason that I don't care much for atheists (and don't get me wrong, here, I don't believe in God, much as I'd like to ...I suppose I should say "people who label themselves atheists to make a fucking cause out of 'enlightening' everyone") - is that atheism is its own religion. It's not as blatant as "Satanism", which began as a joke and is continued for the same reason. But yet it seems to strive to tear people down, to rip away any comforting faith they might hold residually and cap it off with a nice healthy dose of you-are-no-special-snowflake-ergo-all-people-suck. Don't try to be more than you are, indeed. Don't be creative, don't try to be better than anyone, don't think anything can be better, period. A dog and a yard and kids? Everyone can do that! Be happy with that!

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

:Pats You:

I shouldn't have said anything about what atheists believe...because I know some very nice people that have no belief in any diety. And they can't get me to see things there way and I can't get them to see things my way. But that's okay by both of us...I guess.

I suppose the real problem is that the hope lies within me and not within the fiction of RTD or JW...there fiction is limited by their views. I see what they are saying...but they don't really see what I'm saying...because they simply can't look up...or they look up and see nothing...and want to make me lie down with a cold rag on my head until my fever passes.

I just thought...when people were trotting out their little hopes at me...at how small the view was from little hope. And I really believe that having so little hope is what makes us small. That we are human because we believe we can't be god...that god is some illusion or father figure or something apart from us...and we are...as 9 put it..."Tiny and made of clay."

Atheists are okay with that...being made of clay. Fundamentalists believe GOD will come and if we obey him...he will take us from our clay. I believe...we might not have to always be clay.

Rae

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

I should have said...no belief in any belief.

And I do like that the Doctor's belief is proved false in this as well..if his belief is in Rose...then he figures that belief is false...and she doesn't really want HIM to have hope...but just wants a man like him to love.

Rae
who believes...we should help one another...even help our God...heal.

[sensiblecat.livejournal.com]

But if RTD truly believes this, why is he so contemptuous of ordinary life? Because he is. He writes people like Jackie and Donna at the end of JE in a sneering, anti-intellectual way, yet has the Doctor go on about how two ordinary people at a bus stop is the most beautiful thing in creation.

It could be a show that gloriously celebrates ordinary life - that's what the Doctor continually defends and fights to restore, and there was a lovely sequence in JE when it was celebrated, when they got back to Earth and the sun was shining again, etc.

Yet he's always encouraging ordinary people that there's more to life than beans on toast etc - Nine, particularly, did that so cruelly at times.It's not consistent. And besides, I want transcendence in a show. I'm not religious myself but I truly believe that if you're right about his agenda, that's not appropriate for a children's show. To rob children of hope is a wicked thing.

With the gear change at the end of JE, I've been comparing it to LOTR - another epic where the universe is saved but Frodo, the person who saves it, is never able to live a normal life again. It's emotionally exhausting but it doesn't leave you with the same feeling of emptiness as this did, maybe because Frodo does have another place to go - into the west, and we see his companions having some real closure, happiness and delight in the ordinary.

On Mount Doom, in the movie at least, there's the most beautiful celebration of ordinary life, when Sam reminds Frodo in his agony of the beauties of the Shire. "And back home, the strawberries will be ready...etc." That grounds the whole thing and makes the ordinary life worth the fighting for, and the sacrifice bearable to watch.

I have my issues with Tolkien, particularly his attitude to women, but he did have faith. Okay,he wrote for a command and control generation who got on with things, accepted authority and didn't question everything. But, having lived through two devastating world wars, they knew how to value peace and the ordinary.

The Doctor, by comparison, seems determined to destroy his companions' appreciation of their lives and then leave them shattered and broken.And his own attitude to ordinary things is dysfunctional, conflicted and dangerous.

I really wonder if all this will undo what His Dark Materials did and return me to the religious fold.

[thisficklemob.livejournal.com]

The reason that I don't care much for atheists (and don't get me wrong, here, I don't believe in God, much as I'd like to ...I suppose I should say "people who label themselves atheists to make a fucking cause out of 'enlightening' everyone") - is that atheism is its own religion.

Ah! Yes, it can be... if it's strong atheism. Strong atheism is "there is no God". But the other kind of atheism, weak atheism, is just what you say, not believing in god(s). The proselytizing strong atheists give us all a bad name.

I'm a weak atheist; it occupies none of my time (until I start explaining it to people), and I have absolutely zero interest in converting or convincing anyone else.

[wickedgillie.livejournal.com]

Don't try to be more than you are, indeed. Don't be creative, don't try to be better than anyone, don't think anything can be better, period. A dog and a yard and kids? Everyone can do that! Be happy with that!

Honestly, this is my problem with The Wizard of Oz (the beloved movie, not the books) where the premise is pretty much--give up on your dreams of something better and better and just go the frak home.

[thisficklemob.livejournal.com]

I never wanted her to have "a normal life" either. But at the same time, I felt like -- or hoped -- that "a normal life" was shorthand. Not for a picket fence, but for a break from the hardships of being the Chosen One. She'd had seven years of having to make horrible, heart-breaking choices, give up things she wanted and people she loved, and have the ultimate responsibility for the safety of the world. That's a heavy burden to carry from the age of fifteen.

In my head (I don't read the comics, and don't want to know about them), Buffy had some time off where she got to do whatever she wanted... and then chose to go back to Slaying. Of her own free will, which makes all the difference.

I totally agree about the sketchiness of the Slayerification spell, and have many problems with Buffy, but I hopehopehope she'd never be happy in a 100% mundane life.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

But you know...that's what bugs me...about all this hope is in your own mind crap. Here you are...all these years later...tolling to make these pieces fit...because the REAL writer...didn't do his friggin' job.

You have told me...and you are right...that other writers don't feel the same sense of responsiblity toward the audience that I feel...and that I wouldn't be so disappointed in them if I just went in thinking they were going to disappoint me...or something. :grin: Paraphrasing you never works. :bigger grin:

Anyway...there you are with your hopehopehope...in your chose your own adventure life...let down again. And you've learned not to get involved with any television show again. And my point is...RTD shouldn't have that as his GOAL. He's a flippin' TV writer...his goal should be for you to be so inspired by this work that your life is filled with ponies...or socks...and when it is over...you go and write something yourself.

And listening to RTD and David Tennant and Steven Moffat and everyone on this show fanboi it up about when they were kids and their dream to write or star in Doctor Who...I find it very hard to believe that their goal now is to make everyone so angry and disappointed in the Doctor that they use that anger to write a better version of the story for themselves. The goal in their lives...doesn't match the goal they've presented here.

Rae

[thisficklemob.livejournal.com]

Well, either they are going to deliver that pony... and they may... or they don't see it the way we do.

[thisficklemob.livejournal.com]

I dunno. I don't really have a problem with either conception of the divine that you describe here. (As I've said before: I do not clog dance.)

I feel that atheist and fundamentalist views are much the same...in that they both make the divine something separate from us.

I never thought of it like that. I'd disagree, though; I don't think not seeing something (atheist) and seeing it but saying it must stay far above us (fundamentalist) are really the same. You may think I am blind not to see it, but here's the thing: if I saw it, felt it, believed it, I would be the sort to feel it in me. And it's because I don't that I don't. Y'know? I could see myself being a more spiritual person, but I could never see myself as a fundamentalist of any stripe.

Back to Who: there are two potential problems with Doctor-as-god as you describe.

1.) If he's not really a god, then he's wrong to act as he does. He's filled with hubris, and it will (and should) come back to bite him.

2.) If he IS really a god... or God... then why would we care to watch him?

Doctor Who being powerful, brilliant, alien, nearly-eternal, all these are compelling to watch. But if he's really Doctor God... that becomes far less compelling. Because why should we care for his feelings? How can we even pretend to relate to him?

Perhaps if he were a minor god in a more polytheistic mode... not omnipotent, but someone powerful who tests and rescues and bedevils humans...

I can still see that being compelling. BUT not in the way they've compelled people so far. It seems to me people are tuning in... unless they're watching the Rose Tyler or Martha Jones or Donna Noble or Maybe-Jack-Will-Show-Up shows... to see a bit of an adventurous romp... but also to see a powerful, brilliant, alien, nearly-eternal man. To see him struggle with guilt and loss, to see him rejoice in fun and affection.

I see the end of this season as compatible with that, whatever other problems I have with it. But if he really is a God-figure and they keep writing him that way, then it falls apart.

Also, I like socks. *g*

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

This is what I'm saying...essentially...


1.) If he's not really a god, then he's wrong to act as he does. He's filled with hubris, and it will (and should) come back to bite him.

2.) If he IS really a god... or God... then why would we care to watch him?

Doctor Who being powerful, brilliant, alien, nearly-eternal, all these are compelling to watch. But if he's really Doctor God... that becomes far less compelling. Because why should we care for his feelings? How can we even pretend to relate to him?


He's not having a fun romp...at all. I don't know if you noticed that...but he wasn't having any fun...hasn't had any fun...except the fun of a drug addict...in a very long time. The only shots at fun he seems to have...involve literally living through others. The reason he bloomed with Donna this season...is she REALLY enjoyed the ride. He stood back and watched her so many times...and yes, that is a legitimate way to view the series as a whole...that the Doctor saw things anew through the eyes of his companions.

But...in the end...it still makes him sort of codependent too. I think that this character that is blooming before our eyes...has far too many flaws to be making decisions for anyone else. Even though, I know you think he IS capable of making those choices...or could be right in the decisions he's made.

Rae

[thisficklemob.livejournal.com]

You silly goose. I never said he was right. I said his Donna decision could be seen as human and understandable. And you know I don't like what he did to Rose. I was just trying to come up with alternate theories that could make one accept it.

You of all people should know I don't have to believe a fanwank to suggest it. *g*

Rae, I'm writing a fic and dedicating it to you...

[princessblue791.livejournal.com]

I was sitting here, thinking of all the things that have been said. I thought of my job and all the terrible things I've seen. Today I had to edit raw footage from the US Consolate. We recieved it from Turkey. I saw horror, blood, and bodies. Things I'm always seeing that are so dark and sad. My job is to tell people just that; that things are dark and sad. I hate that about it.Yet I was editing it. However, now, just now, I started thinking of you before the finale. Someone who took a small point of light and made it so big. You taught me that sometimes you have to make your own hope. Sometimes there isn't going to be someone there to do it for you. Its funny where you learn things. Take your own advice. There's a change that things will be resolved in the four parter. If not, there is hope elsewhere.

Well...now I'm all teared up...

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

...yes, there is a chance that things will be resolved in the 4 parter...I wasn't ever saying there wasn't a chance of that.

Truthfully, I know this will sound bad after you've just said I made your point of light big...because that's really what I think I'm hear for...honestly, I think that's what we are all here for...to make each other's lives better. I think we often do a very lousy job of it...and I hate that, right now, it looks like RTD doesn't believe we can make each other better...or at least we can't make the Doctor and Donna more expansive...

But you are so right about HOPE being elsewhere...because after I talked to my friend today...he asked me why I was taking this so personally and I said...it goes against the grain of what I believe is true in this man's own work. And then he said, "What about YOUR work? If this man is saying what HE does is meaningless...if that's what he's saying...there is no hope here...is there no hope in your work?"

And I said, "Well...we could look at it that way...that I should tell my readers I've lied to them...there is no hope to be found in fiction and to step away from the computer and/or put down the book they are reading and/or stop watching television...and go explore their REAL lives." But dang it...I believe I AM communicating with YOU...and everyone else...I am telling you something important. I am telling you to look beyond the war...beyond the blue box that keeps you safe...and see this larger connection to me via that light inside you.

Rae
absolutely thrilled to have touched your heartlight...I AM out here...don't worry.

Re: Well...now I'm all teared up...

[(Anonymous)]

"But dang it...I believe I AM communicating with YOU...and everyone else...I am telling you something important. I am telling you to look beyond the war...beyond the blue box that keeps you safe...and see this larger connection to me via that light inside you."

That brought me to tears. I wish the Doctor was in your hands, because that is what I believed about HIM all this time. When you were talking about there being no hope, I felt lost. So thank you for saying that and thank you "Princessblue791" for saying what I believe every reader of hers feels.

Re: Well...now I'm all teared up...

[princessblue791.livejournal.com]

Its only the truth. lol

Re: Well...now I'm all teared up...

[princessblue791.livejournal.com]

Just thought you'd like to know. Its pretty powerful really. This is why people worship writers.They give us hope and then its like "thank you for waking me up again."

[webeh.livejournal.com]

I'm being way off topic here, but have you seen Seduff's re-edit of the Human!Doctor/Rose scene? It's kind of amazing all the difference a little bit of cutting/pasting makes. Seduff pretty much changed the entire tone of the scene, which I kind of love. :)

Another off-topic question, but do you follow any other fandom where you absolutely adore a ship? I really enjoy your ship discussions. If it doesn't look like that Moffatt will be going back to the Rose/Doctor storyline, will there be another couple you'll be discussing regularly?

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

I have shipped other couples...but few have pleased me to the extent that Rose and Ten did. I don't know that I will invest again in a fictional storyline that is not from my own mind...now. I feel that RTD really...literally has killed television for me...shipping...fandoms...all of that. And since, despite his comtempt, those things are his bread and butter...literally...I feel if this is the best he can do...he's let his whole profession down.

Melodramatic, I know...and also...I know that at this moment most people don't agree with me and will go on hoping. Since, ironically, hope is the human default position. But this finale is the abusive side of things...that you keep going back to something that will never fulfill you and is full of lies...is the dark side of hope. I'm not saying that there is no hope here...or that it won't all work out okay...I'm saying if this is...truly IS all RTD has to say...then I really can find something else to think about than a television show.

It is a self-fulfilling prophecy you see? If the Doctor can't leave his box...and I can leave mine...then I'll leave him to his box. And I believe eventually...other people will try the door and leave their boxes, too. But that leaves RTD and the Doctor...as existential works of art...meaningful in that they are meaningless.

Rae

[astitchintime-9.livejournal.com]

I hope that I'm not replying only to your 'dark' posts, but your sentiments here again express where I am, too.

I've walked away from DW in past: when it was too much a kiddie show with green goo in every ep, when Six was unpleasant inside and out and his companions were shrill with bad accents, and the adult actors dressed and behaved childishly.

I've enjoyed many fandoms over the years, but I can't recall ever being a OTP shipper - in fact, I told you how surprised I was by the kiss in PotW, due to SciFi channel's edits. Bottom line, I didn't need to have Rose's story become a romance at all and I'd have been glad to simply appreciate how she'd matured. But it was RTD's choice to take the relationship to a romantic love.

I felt the same, only stronger, with Donna - she was older, she was so much better for the Doctor and she'd already lived enough to know what the choice that she was making meant.

It is also my choice where I look to keep the candle of hope burning in my heart, and if the Doctor, RTD, Peter Pan, what have you, can't keep pain of their dark existence from raining out the light of my inner flame, then they don't deserve me, and I'll go where my light can burn brightest, strongest and truest.

I'm sorry if some of my recent posts have distressed you, but obviously it is taking me longer to get to that hopeful place that you seem to be able to summon up at will. Perhaps because I'm not a writer, storyteller or puzzle-maker, I lack the ability to reconfigure the threads in a way that pleases me.

I will tell you, Rae, that the oxygen of your hope is fuel to my small (but as yet unquenched!) fire, and I gratefully thank you for sharing it. When I come here to your journal, as choked up as I may be, I always feel as if I can finally breathe again.

Thank you.

[ladymcclellan.livejournal.com]

Ok, I've only left you one post here in adoring praise of Disheveled - and its still golden, I loved it - but I have to say...I think you are reading a bit much into the season finale. Now I admit, I'm a new who fan and an American, so the leg I have to stand on is wobbly, but I'm still a fan. Also, I loved and still miss the fun and comeraderie of season 2. The Doctor and Donna only had one fun episode together - The Unicorn/Wasp - and sadly I didn't like it.

That being said - I loved the season 4 finale. I do definately feel badly for the Doctor, but the reality is two things - he really does love Rose and if she stayed with him she would grow old and die and I think that might be harder on her in some ways. By giving her 10.2 he gave her a Doctor who could love her the way she deserves - as an equal. The second part is the reality check. Billie won't come back, so Rose can't stay. There is simply no way to do that. I love all your theories about the lonely god, and yes its crap that they continually give him the short end of the stick, but that's the situation. Maybe Moffet will find the fun for him again. I'm hopeful since, well, I loved Blink.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

First, thank you so much for the kind words about Disheveled. And it is more likely that I would read more into a work of fiction by someone I admire than the more casual television viewer. I am sure you are not alone in loving the finale...and taking away what you took from it, too.

That being said...I never thought Billie would stay. I am not in any way saying I felt that was viable or even desired possibility for the show. I said we would have two Doctors. But I want the Doctor we got stuck with to go...the Doctor we got stuck with is the one who needs to go...he's the one who is moping about...he's the one that loves Rose and wants that life.

1) the Doctor is no fun at all anymore. I mean...I know there are shiny moments...and tragedy can be moving...but he is not having fun.
2) the Time Lords are gone...which means the Doctor is a relic of a dead age...we could resurrect that age...bring the Time Lords back...or we could reinvent the Doctor.
3) the Doctor really...I mean REALLY wants to be in that parallel world.
4) Him going and 10.2 staying...allows Donna to travel the stars with him forever.
5) It's sort of the one adventure he's never had...normal life...and then death.
6) It's all scifi anyway...so any scifi happy is reversable by another writer...if the Doctor went to Rose...and 10.2 stayed...it wouldn't HAVE to be forever.
7) We are told here there can never be a human Time Lord...a complete reversal of something the fandom already believes...this also calls into question the validity of the Eighth Doctor's film.
8) 10.2...is judged war-torn and needy...by 10...who was so lost to real judgement that he wouldn't let anyone make their own decisions...nor would he pull the plug on Davros or the Daleks...it's one thing to offer a second chance but these guys have had about 35...and 10.2 is RIGHT...you can't let them live...if they were made from Davros...they shouldn't even exist.

This whole plot only hangs together...if you really completely believe that 10 knows what he is doing for everyone else...even though he is acting against their previously expressed wishes.

1) Donna said she had nothing and was nothing...and she was willing to lay down her life in Turn Left if she got to set the world right and be special.
2) Rose has repeatedly told us her motivation for staying with the Doctor is all about HIM...not her...she never once said she wanted a happy normal life with a man who would age with her.
3) The Doctor quite clearly in the middle of the worst crisis imaginable...clearly is still moved by the idea of seeing Rose again. Clearly he loves Rose just the way she is, too, and she's proved herself more than his equal many times over...look at her in Turn Left. Look at her every time she's faced the Daleks...she's the one they imprision...the only companion the Daleks lock up. That's because SHE kicked their ass.

Anyway...I too loved Blink...and Empty Child/The Doctor Dances...and I feel Moffat has a shot at bringing us new enemies and new concepts...and new challenges...I just wish he had a real new, new Doctor...one that was half-human on his Donna side...one that really wouldn't need someone to hold his hand...because he could comfort himself...one who really wouldn't need to be stopped because he had that inner capacity to stop himself.

Rae

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

Oh...and since I am now fighting the Humperdinck with quotes from The Princess Bride...

Westley: Hear this now: I will always come for you.
Buttercup: But how can you be sure?
Westley: This is true love - you think this happens every day?

:smirk: