Doctor Who: Season 5 Episode 5 Spoilers

[rabid1st]

There's not much I can say above this cut except that Kes should read this post. :wink:

Now, that's more like it. Finally, Moff rose to the level of writing I was expecting of him. And as you all know, I didn't expect him to be the savior of Doctor Who. I rather thought people would get bored with his bag of tricks in a couple of years. But Flesh & Stone was great. It was what I expected of Moffat: clean, precise storytelling. I would not go as far as the Guardian did and declare this the best Doctor Who Episode EVER! But, it was damned fine work from everyone in the cast and crew. I can see where they spent the money. And I consider it well spent indeed. I thought Amy was still a bit of a muppet. It's those glassy eyes of hers. People have been ragging on Moff for having her "save the day" in previous episodes. But the show is a two-hander now and we can't expect it to go back to her screaming for help all the time. My problem is literally her acting or possibly the directing. I wasn't getting a sense that the saving of the day ideas really came from Amy's head. I could see the writer moving her around like a pawn (or a muppet).

But she was LOL in the seduction scene. And you know what? I felt bad for her in sitting there wringing her hands in the middle of the forest, too. I've had to do that as a child...sit somewhere scary all on my own and wait for someone to come for me. The idea that something you can't see is going to get you, is lurking right behind you, is very scary. Karen rose to the acting in that scene, I think, because she connected with something real in Amy. This sort of scariness is what I expected Moff to bring me with his leadership. This is what he has been failing to deliver. The writing has been sloppy and scattered and well below par, for me, until this two parter.

Matt Smith, also, had some very good moments in this one. For one thing, he returned me to those glorious days of yesteryear when the Doctor was too busy thinking to notice someone making a pass at him. And I am perfectly okay with that. Also, I am okay with the level of flirtation he has with River in this one. But beyond the non-romantic aspect of it, I thought that Matt was able to bring a sense of confidence to the Doctor this time that he has been sorely lacking until this point. For the first time, for me, I thought just maybe he really was thinking higher thoughts and panicking at the same time. It's in that "comfy chair" bit or the way he explains that he will need to turn off the lights. It's in the kiss on Amy's forehead and the sudden shouting that differs from David's sudden shouting by the level of Matt's Doctor being 9 years old emotionally. It won't hurt him personally for people to die in the same way that it hurt Nine and Ten...and that's good...because it lets him be the Doctor and save most of the universe. Nine and Ten needed Rose...and I don't think they owe anyone an apology for that. But Eleven might just need a friend along because it makes him sharper and less prone to talk to himself. And HE doesn't need to apologize for THAT. It's just a different interpretation of the character. As long as he delivers the gravitas he needs to deliver.

Last time out I was quite critical of the Doctor being 9 years old emotionally, but I also stated this could turn out to be Matt's Doctor's strength, his defining characteristic. Here in Flesh & Stone, we see that working very well indeed. Beyond that, it is sort of what I had in mind when I said we should start anew with Handy Ten as the Eleventh Doctor. It is starting fresh with the character having that child-like wonder, making him a child again emotionally, which moves you safely away from David and Chris and the Doctor's attachment to Rose.

What ruins RTDs vision of the Doctor, ultimately, is that he created a Doctor who wanted grown-up things...and then...he took those things away by suggesting the Doctor was as helpless as any child in the face of the impossible. This basically diminishes the character of the Doctor. Because he CAN do the impossible. We rely on him doing the impossible. We rely on him being the one to sort things out for us. So, quite obviously, if he wants to be with Rose Tyler, which he quite evidently did, he would find a way to be with her. This is illustrated in Flesh & Stone when River says..."How impossible?" and he says, "Two minutes."

The essential question for me (and I think for all fans of Doctor Who) is when life hangs in the balance, how long is it going to take the Doctor to do the impossible? Will everyone still be alive when he saves the day? This, btw, was also the situation with Rose Tyler for me. This, I believe, is why, when the Doctor is down in the Satan Pit, he says, "I believe in her." He believes Rose Tyler will save him even though it is impossible. And he also knows...somewhere in his gut...that the SHE that is returning...is Rose. Because, of course, she will come back for him. She is the "stuff of legends" just as he is. The question then becomes...how long will it take her? I kept that faith in Rose that I was told by the writer to keep. Interestingly, the Doctor also kept that faith in Season 4. But RTD apparently lost it. Either that or he is saying that the half-assed, half-Doctor solution he gave us is the impossible answer. No perfect happiness exists and we have to endure as we are all making do. I don't know. It seemed to me that living a happy life with Rose in an alternative world is a five and 1/2 hour impossible solution. And a bittersweet one, assuming Rose was human and would die on him one day. That explains why I wrote the Doomsday Coda.

But moving back to this episode again. If Ten/Rose were the stuff of legends. Eleven/River are the stuff of fairy tale. Smoke and mirrors. Definitely not what they seem. It's Alice in Wonderland, I think, for Amy Pond. Nothing is what it seems. And, apparently, there will not be a romance, because the Doctor is back to being "too high-minded" for one. Amy doesn't really want one, either, she just wants a bit of excitement or a way out of getting married in the morning. Shades of the Peter Pan Syndrome again...running away from responsiblities and straight into trouble. No matter though, the Doctor is on his way to figuring out what I had figured out long ago...that the crack is related to Amy. And it looks like there is an explosion, too.

Of course, we know there was a big explosion to start this season. The TARDIS exploded with no reasonable explanation as to why that happened. There you have space and time in one place and certainly wires could be crossed at that moment. And, I would love it to have cracked the universe by reuniting Ten with a human body over in another universe...but to have had the unfortunate side-effect of draining away creation into the void. I am not sure about that take on things becoming canon though. It's just wishful thinking on my part and I seriously doubt it will work out that way. But I figure wherever or whenever Amy came from, putting her back is what the Doctor definitely needs to do to stop the slide of time & space into oblivion. Maybe Amy will need to put herself back, since he has told her to remember.

It's a very neat solution to getting rid of a companion. Very Alice in Wonderland as I've been saying. She's big. She's little. She's down the rabbit hole to see the Mad Hatter (or the Madman with a Box). And Moff has foreshadowed it all nicely with the fairy tale idea. There is definitely a lot of fairy tale about the Doctor spiriting away young girls and changing their lives forever. And his ability to jump around in time is interesting as well. astichintime_9 says he is more Puck than Pan. I can believe in that interpretation.

As for River, I assume that the good man she killed was the Doctor. And time can be rewritten so we need not worry about that, forewarned is forearmed as they say. Only maybe they don't spell it that way, I don't know. Was the video Amy in The Beast Below doing what the jacketed Doctor did here? Was she urging Amy to change history and rewrite time?

The suck them into the void solution for the Angels was very much a repeat of Doomsday...and not nearly as clever as some other aspects of the episode. I loved the forest as an oxygen factory. And the Angels feeding on an unexpected source of energy as a device to expose the cracks. I don't like the very nature of the angels being altered. They are supposedly Quantum Locked, which was defined as "they don't exist when you look at them." I doubt closing your eyes would matter, in that case, because you wouldn't be looking. Perhaps, making different choices could matter though. To understand the term Quantum Locked you have to understand a bit about Schrödinger's cat. The angels are not living or dead until someone experiences them. This could have been played out very nicely in the story, given the idea that people were ceasing to exist. And I do think that's what Moff was going for with the time crack stopping the invasion. It is clever to use physics.

But, his concept doesn't quite hold together when you add in the idea of something living in the mind's eye. Closing your eyes doesn't stop you from seeing a mental image...in many ways it sharpens that image. And worse yet, we see this early in the season when Amy forces Prisoner Zero to take his own form by recalling that form with her eyes closed. Here she should basically work on smudging the angel, altering it in the mind's eye. But, whatever. I wonder if it is relevant that Amy can still remember the angels. This could be another clue about Amy or it could mean nothing. The Doctor dismisses her memory too easily for me. But we all know that off-hand dismissing is a device RTD used to stop us asking pesky questions about his plot holes.

I did like the death of the Bishop. It was a gripping, realistic sacrifice. I thought Matt was once again stellar there, not apologizing, not ranting, just a little teary eyed as the man dies on his watch. To me, this is another defining moment for his Doctor. I liked how and why he shouted. I liked him relaxing in the chair. I liked the idea that he really was too busy thinking to notice someone making a pass at him. And I do like that he's starting to be less Tennant like and more his own person in this episode. Even more than in The Eleventh Hour, where I felt he was mixing Tennant in for a good transition.

I liked that the crack in the wall has come to the Doctor's attention at this time in the storyline. It bodes well for the season as a whole that Moff is moving on it this early in the arc of the season. It restores, as I've said, a bit of my faith in his careful planning. This should be the end of Act One...introductions. Now, on to chaos building up to the hero's defeat and demoralization in Episode 9 or 10. Then we will see if Moff is as clinical with the entire season as he was with this two parter. This really was one of the best two part episodes in New Who. So, you see...? I can say good things about Moff and Matt! :grin:



Rae

Comments

[onlyoot.livejournal.com]

I9 want to bring it to your attention that there MAY be a bit of double doctor in this episode.

1. The Doc gets caught by the angels and escapes leaving his jacket.
2. Catches up with everyone (no jacket)
3. Leaves Amy and says later (no jacket)
4. APPARENTLY comes back but IS WEARING A JACKET!!! talks to Amy and disappears again.
5. Next seen with River and Bishop again WITHOUT jacket.

Continuity error? Possibly but doubtful. Could it be a later version of the Doctor?

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

Could very well be a later and earlier version. I did think the jacket loss was important, but it was one of the things on the edge of my awareness. I stopped paying attention to it. I will look closer on my second viewing.

I will also try not to get to the point in my pondering where I think Moff is doing what I would do in his place, which is correcting the horrid mess of JE. My Ten2/Rose story in the planning stages, "Something Blue" literally meshes beautifully with this story so far. And there could well be more than one Doctor. My fic is very dependent on the ideas of quantum physics, which we do touch on from time to time in Doctor Who and which is part of the very concept of parallel worlds.

What I want to know from YOU, Oot, is this: Who you think River is?

I must say I figure she can be a number of different things or people at this point in the mix. The only clanging bell for me happened over the idea of a Storm Cage, but it didn't really give me anything definative.

Rae

[onlyoot.livejournal.com]

River Song. At this point she could be a great many things. His Wife, a lover, a future companion, his killer? All possible. What I do know is that she is dangerous. She holds the advantage over the Doctor and COULD potentially cause trouble with future knowledge and decisions that she believes to be right based on what she knows. Shes also using all thsi future knowledge to take advantage of him in the past. He's helping her and saving her without knowing who she really is. All this flirtation and hinting could really be an act on her part.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

Ah! When you said it was a clanging bell for you...I thought you meant that you had recognized something in her. And I do not really have anything concrete to go on at this point.

She's very much like the Master in some ways. But she could also be Jack or Jenny or Rose or the embodiment of the TARDIS or some sort of automaton. I think the main thing is what you mention here...she's told him not to change a single line of their story in Silence in the Library...a story that is already written in her book. And as the Doctor says there and here time can be rewritten. If only I could rewrite it to get him to his faithful meeting with Rose...and that happy life. Le Sigh! Still, this Doctor doesn't seem to need the help that Ten needed and again, if I was Moff, I would want to explain why that is...in canon.

I do feel that the River flirtation is more menacing than comforting or fun. And so I do immediately think that the man she killed was the Doctor. But, we will see what happens. At the very least, I am now much more interested in River and the Moffat season than I was before this episode.

Rae

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

Oh, you are right! And it is important. It is where he kisses her forehead. I knew there was something wrong with that kiss. Definitely another Doctor...telling Amy to remember...he can't tell her what it is she must remember. Nor, is he telling US. But you and I should go back and check. Oh, clever Moff. HA!

Of course, this is what I mean about Moff being too clinical. Even though I didn't see the bit with the jacket that you saw...I knew that leaving the jacket and talking to Amy were both important. Moff telegraphs his tricks...but if he's careful that can still work for the show.

Rae

[saku-teiki.livejournal.com]

He can't tell us what he told Amy because he hasn't gone back to tell her yet. Wibbly wobbly! :)

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

You could be right about that...but I think not. Moff is clinical. So probably we aren't seeing it, because it is out of context.

[onlyoot.livejournal.com]

I did go back and see but I cant work out what he wants her to remember. The bit about him being a madman with a box? Beans are bad?

I also wonder about the scene in Eleventh hour where you see Young Amy in the Morning fed up and then she looks up and smiles and you hear the Tardis sound. This cuts to a scene of Older Amy waking up and you presume it was a dream. But what if it wasnt....

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

I would imagine that what he told her was something to do with the crack in her wall. One thing that doesn't quite match up is that he tells her that Prisoner Zero can't have escaped through there because they would have seen him. Then we start the whole "corner of your eye" idea...and we assume that we didn't see him because he is hidden. But there is something else...he tells her that the only way to seal the crack is to open it up all the way...and that will either lead to sealing it, or....

"You know how grown-ups tell you everything is going to be fine?"

Well, what if what is happening is the Orrrr....? It didn't seal properly...Amy fell through it...from Not-Scotland where her parents are searching for her. Because one thing that is very bothersome to ME in that first episode is how the eyeball ships go from wherever they were on the far side of the crack...to hanging out over the Earth?

[onlyoot.livejournal.com]

We the eyeball ships are easy. They could have easily came to Earth by conventional means. And in fact you do see them fly away into space. And because they were tracking the Doctor it takes them 12 years to arrive at Earth.

The crack is certainly very important. I dont think her parents are looking for her but there was definitely some interaction with the crack and the fact that the doctor opens it. Because when we first see it it opens up to the prison plant. Just another point is space and time. But every time after that, its the end of the universe.

We have to work out what fairytale moff is telling. It definitely is one. Even the Laptop that handsome boy uses has a MYTH logo on it. And then theres the Pandorica which is another fairy tale

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

Well, not to mention...essentially...in Amy's world...the Doctor is a fairy tale. He's her imaginary friend and people keep telling us that as we go along. We discount it because the Doctor is quite real to us. But...okay...this is now very close to my story Something Blue. But...what if in Amy's world...there really is no Doctor? What if it is all quiet village with no Cybermen or Daleks? And all of her friends are transported somehow...so that what we really have is just a child's fantasy or...imaginary friend come to life.

Rae

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

Oh, and you are, of course, right about the eyeball ships coming from somewhere else...rather than somewhen. While Amy could be from somewhen.

As for what fairy tale he's telling...there is the MYTH. An obvious entimological relationship between the opening of the Pandorica...and Pandora's Box (or Jar). Pandora's curiousity unleashed hell on Earth. Maybe Amy's or the Doctor's unleashed something as well. Pandora shut the box super quick and trapped hope, frail and fluttering hope. The Doctor is basically the embodiment of hope, perhaps Amy sort of trapped him.

Does the crack go to the end of the universe...or does it MEAN the end of the universe? Basically it seems to be spewing temporal energy...not unlike the untempered schism...or the heart of the TARDIS. It is consuming the universe...but that's not the same as opening at the end. It is rather like Bad Wolf means the end of the universe. If Rose is able to return than the walls that keep the universes seperate are cracked...and the universe is ending.

Rae

[onlyoot.livejournal.com]

OOH OOH. Erica just pointed out another things. This time in the 11th hour. Theres the scene where the Doc is looking around and remembering what he has seen in his minds eye and he remembers Rory on his phone talking pics of the man and his dog. And you zoom in on Rorys hospital card. If you look at the registration date on his card its says 1990. Now we know the current year is meant to be 2008. We get this from the fact that the doc picks up amy 2 years later in 2010. But HOW could he card say 1990. Thats 18 years earlier and hes about Amys age. That would make him about 7 when he got the card. Amys age when we meet her.

2 places in space and TIME that should never have met. 1990 and 2008 possibly.

And then there the fact that the doc turned up 12 years late. A mistake on HIS part, or was it BECAUSE of the crack and the mix up in time.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

There you go. That's what he tells her in her room. Two points in space and time that should never have met. Maybe because the TARDIS was crashing through time and space...because of the explosion. Which means, essentially, that HE should never have met Amy one of those times. But he did...then he sort of goes back and forth...cracking the universe. That could be it. No alternative universe at all...just alternative times. Maybe he IS just her imaginary friend from 7 years of age...and only that.

Rae

[susanb03.livejournal.com]

I'm really glad that you've not given up completely on Doctor Who. I was concerned with some of your earlier comments that you wouldn't even give Series 5 a chance. I'm glad you're starting to enjoy it even a little. I always had a 'wait and see' approach to Matt. I'm glad he's not proving himself wanting.

He got off to a rocky start but I think there's potential.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

Oh, it would be very hard for me to give up on the Doctor. I love him first and foremost. But I do think that the romance with Rose came the closest anything has come to killing my love for the character. And not because I think it was a bad idea or wrong for the show...but because RTD didn't commit to it wholeheartedly the way that the Doctor would have committed to it. The way that the Doctor DID commit to it except in those final four and 1/4 episodes.

My critical reviews were based strictly on the show falling well below par, in my opinion. And people basically not noticing that it was falling well below par. All of those, this is the greatest team ever articles were completely wrong. This is a team with a real struggle on their hands and they have turned in some real turkeys. But they do have potential...and it was great to see them living up to it. Even if I wouldn't go so far as to say this is the best Who episode ever. Certainly, it is a damned fine episode though. And Matt did rise to the level that he should try to maintain.

Rae

[saku-teiki.livejournal.com]

I like what you brought up about the angels. I think the angel in her head needed her eyes to be open... so that the angel could leave through them. If that made sense.

What bothers me the most, besides yet ANOTHER companion snogging the Doctor pretty much just to do it, is that Eleven doesn't seem to remember Donna. She didn't remember the Daleks or the spaceship or anything because she wasn't there. She was in the countryside and not paying attention. Couldn't Amy also not be paying attention? Or are we just disregarding that? Augh.

Also, what happened to the photos of the angels that Sally Sparrow gave Ten in Blink? Are there angels in the 60s? Did they BECOME the angels in the episode?! Oooh, I just answered my own question. :)

Angels in the Outfield, hey?

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

What happened to poor Sally Sparrow? Well, nothing, but she did give the angel pictures to the Doctor.

It's a shame that Sally is now on the cusp of a huge film career. Because he could go make Sally the next companion. That would be very cool. I suppose they could recast.

Something tells me that Amy is a one season wonder.

Rae
who isn't too attached to her anyway...beyond the muppet mystery of her.

[keswindhover.livejournal.com]

I am busy right now - about to vote, and then chauffeuring Elinora to Windsor, having driven her all over the Cotswolds yesterday. But I shall read and ponder over the weekend. And I have the episode taped for second viewing.

*pets*

[astitchintime-9.livejournal.com]

I am not minding Eleven.


Have you seen Steve McGarry's latest BioGraphic? It was printed in newspapers last Sunday (2 May, 2010).

I missed the significance of the jacket, though I found the moment where he's abruptly back with her in the woods to be especially moving.

The reminder of Victorian London's CyberKing invasion was an interesting tie-in to recent past events. Especially as a problem for Elvn. Which scenario would be worse: actual events becoming undone, and Earth's history re-written without them? Or undoing the collective amnesia surrounding the Doctor's activities in Earth's history? And what if the events/anmesia isn't contained to Earth? Or even this Earth's universe? Hmmmmmm?

According to Ten & Elvn, "time can be re-written". I have hope that perhaps certain times that should be re-written will be re-written by a more generous Power (i.e., the one who wants everybody to live, and who brought Jenny back from the dead and set her free to be.). I have a list, if SM needs to be reminded of corrections to be made to NewWho beyond River Song's past crime and future pod-verse fate.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

Well, I do hope that he and I are rewriting the right bits. But I won't be hanging my hopes on him. I've decide to just take it as it comes now and try to figure out what he's doing in his own season. There is one small bit of hope for US...and that is that he can rewrite RIVER...which would intersect with both Donna and Rose...and maybe explain what Rose was so desperate to tell the Doctor in some of those shots. I mean, more than you or I...Moffat had to be watching RTD and wondering about what HE was going to write.

Still, I think we should hold tight to the idea that this is all contained in the Elvn universe. So, Amy is the key to it all. And to a certain extent...River Song.

Rae
who is only moved by the fact that some of this explanation does run very much along the lines of the Something Blue story I'm writing. Basically, in it, I explain everything that went wrong in the RTD universe...from MY list. :grin:

[nightbeast.livejournal.com]

The asexual in me has never found bracers quite so appealing.

The crack can be a very cynical reset button for Moffat to use. The Doctor says people that go to the crack cease to exist; have their entire existence removed from time. There was a crack in Victory of the Daleks, so no-one will remember the Daleks in WWII.

Moffat could readily apply the crack to the RTD era. Amy doesn't remember the Daleks from Journey's End. Anything Moffat doesn't like is going into that crack... a canon clean slate.

Lisa
Still pinging bracers in her mind

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

Well, that's fine by me. I could make good use of everything going into the crack. And frankly, Moff may be using the exact device I was talking about all those months I went on about the need for a Pony. You sort of need to reset the Doctor Who universe after what RTD did to it. Part of the magic of his existence is that people don't know about or believe in him. In Old School that was easy because the world was threatened in very intimate ways. Rather like what happens with the Daleks in Victory of the Daleks. RTD made it all personal and set so much of his major moments on Earth that it stole away much of the magic of the series for the future.

One main reason, as you probably remember, that I wanted to start over with Ten2 as Eleven is that I wanted to bring something fresh and new to the universe. This would also have happened if Ten had gone to Rose and Eleven had returned to a different universe...or one where he was considered mythical rather than something everyone knows about. By making the Doctor a Christ-figure...literally spreading his gospel over the entire Earth...and from one end of the universe to the other...RTD took some of the mystery out of the canon.

Moff could very well be using this crack in the world to explain why future companions and others will be resistant to the Doctor helping them. After all, it is getting harder and harder to explain why everyone doesn't just accept that he is going to save them...or destroy them...like the Eyeball Ships accepted it.

I did think of you when Eleven got all asexual there. It was quite refreshing...and perhaps...hopefully...will put an end to the kissing part of Doctor Who.

Rae

[sweetevangeline.livejournal.com]

I finally just watched this episode last night and, I'm not going to lie, I got a little physically uncomfortable when River wrapped Amy's hands around that bar and told her not to let go.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

There is not a doubt that Moff is drawing heavily on the emotional ghosts of RTD. But is he doing this to make some kind of point, to reflect back or to be offensive and compare his stories to Russell's? Or is it completely unconscious and unfortunate? I don't know. But, yes, it does make the viewer a little uncomfortable. In good storytelling, it would be specifically designed to do just that, designed to give you a sense of deja vu that links to the current story in some way.

Rae

[sweetevangeline.livejournal.com]

I wondered that myself - what's the motive here? I mean, he can't be doing it unconsciously, it's just too blatant sometimes. And I...well. I can hardly guess what the link would be. Maybe it's just that, though, a meaningless link to keep the RTD viewers curious and watching.