17 Minutes Into A Good Man Goes To War

[rabid1st]

And so far it is everything, everything I can't abide about Moff's era and this entire crew.

They are braggarts. On and on and on without any substance behind the audacity. It is excruciating to watch. I literally find myself sick to my stomach as they gush. And, no, making it about Rory didn't help and didn't strike me as clever. It's telling not showing in the extreme. It reminds me of a bad romance novel. "In the corner was a devastatingly handsome man, a god among men, his eyes were riveting and his muscles Herculean. He's Dash Darling the genius novelist and scientific boy wonder who invented plastic and he's looking at me. My knees go weak. I know that this is not just love but an angelic ecstasy never before experienced by any man or woman. A love that will live on in legend and song for centuries to come and all other loves will be compared to it but they will be failures in light of this passion which is so astounding I can't even explain it."

I mean, when Nine postured, which was rarely, it was charming because he was such a doofus in the eyes of Rose and Jack. And also he had that simmering darkness, which came out in direct action. When Ten bragged, he still had enough of an edge of crazy and there was Rose to impress (and to keep him grounded)...so you might believe him. But even Ten got so over the top that he was a bit nauseating once he was on his own.

But Eleven takes boosting and posturing to an obnoxious level. He and his companions, especially River, do nothing but brag and bluster and all of the characters just wet themselves coming up with even more preposterous references to him, that has we never see really delivered by the storyline. It is tedious.

Whatever happened to this guy...?

Comments

[phdelicious.livejournal.com]

I really need to go back and watch original Who, now that its easier to acquire. Suggestions? Order? Its hard to figure out from the titles/listings sometimes.

Don't watch for "A Good Man Goes to War" watch for what comes after. Particularly this past week's "The Girl Who Waited".

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

OH, I'm going to keep going. But mostly because this plot fits in seamlessly with Wild Geese 2. I mean, you know my views on Time Lord kids a bit from Wild Geese. But I love that they are canonizing the idea that exposure to the Time Vortex is what made Time Lords. An idea that I bring forward in Disheveled and intend to work through in WG2. I am, of course, sorry I didn't press on because this story is treading all over my ideas so they are hardly going to astonish anyone now. But, still, I think I have something further to say about all this in fiction. I hope so.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

I'm going to make a prediction here and assume that The Girl Who Waited is River in the library. Of course, as always, I expect to be wrong about that. But even if I am this time, I'm not wrong in the long run. I imagine Eleven will be rescuing River from her computer tomb at some point before he and Moff end their run.

Rae
who made a whole list of episodes for you to watch and then deleted it by mistake. So, I should say that it would be a good idea to watch Season 14 (see Wikipedia), which includes Hand of Fear, where Sarah Jane Smith leaves and The Deadly Assassins which gives you a great intro to old time Time Lords and then several good Leela episodes.

[phdelicious.livejournal.com]

"The Girl Who Waited" is not a River episode - nor is it a Moff written ep - which is part of what I like about it. But I wouldn't be surprised if you were right about Moff pulling River out of the library - but I kind of like her there. Too bad he can't leave the Mary Sue alone.

Even if Moff is playing with the wibley-wobley and the baby in a TARDIS concept, I'd still like to see your take on it.

I was thinking of starting with Sarah Jane anyway because I know a little about who she is. So I'll have to look into that.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

I am trying to remember what the first Sarah Jane Smith story is. I like her in Robot, which is the first Four episode, but I would like you to see her with Three, too. Because of the different dynamic with a wildly different Doctor. Because of the Rose/Doctor love we modern fans really never did get to see what a radically different Doctor is like with a long time companion. Rose has such an emotional reaction that it is more about the lose and return of her lover than the old style of learning about a new Doctor that we get when Three becomes Four.

Also, if you watch Season 14, you will probably fall in love with Four. Though, he could never take over the place in my heart that Ten holds.

[wickedgillie.livejournal.com]

I just watched it recently. She was with Three, ended up in Medieval Times, and there was a Sontaran involved. Any idea as to the name? I'm drawing a blank.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

The Time Warrior. There we go. I would assume it is the one right after The Green Death, since that is when we lost Jo.

Rae

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

How was it to rewatch the old episodes? I tried when the show first came back and the production values were even worse than I recalled. However, as I say above, there is something to be said for far superior writing line to line.

Rae

[wickedgillie.livejournal.com]

My biggest issue was the pacing. Netflix has episode arcs pieced together as a single entity (with titles/credits in between, etc) and every single thing felt like it went on for-EVER. I could doze off and not miss much since so much of it was filler. As to the production values, Abbey asked me (while watching a different episode), "Why was that man wearing green bubble wrap?" But I'm still happy to see old friends.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

The bubble wrap question reminds me of The Leisure Hive, which was the first Doctor Who episode I ever saw. My buddies at the comic store had been after me for a year to watch it and I'd been resisting them. So, I tune in and there are all these people with bits of clay stuck to a cheesy cone on their heads to show they are aliens. And then they are attacked by men in black plastic garbage bags. The bags would sort of do a crunchy tumble as the men moved inside and we were supposed to think they were some kind of alien menace. Added to that, Tom Baker was so worn and tired that he just looked like he wanted to lie down for a nap during the dragging bits of the story.

As I said somewhere above, that episode three run up and down corridors (or tunnels, or caves, or tubes) really was tedious. As you say...filler.

Rae

[gwendolynflight.livejournal.com]

Ooh, Four (is that Four?) was kind of a bad ass, in a very gentlemanly, British sort of a way. Which seems quite appropriate ...

Honestly, Ten was best when Rose was around. I mean, they were children poking dangerous things with sticks for the delight of it, but as a watchable character, Ten was best that season. And then the writers got addicted to his darkness and that became the whole character. Bleh.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

Yes! That is Four. He's lovely and odd.

The Doctor is not meant to be a dark character. And amazingly, River finally says that. However, it makes her look like a Muppet because it goes against all of her puffing him up that came before that.

[marrael.livejournal.com]

I've started watching the recommended episodes of the current season. Watched A Good Man Goes to War yesterday, and just watched Let's Kill Hitler before I saw this post. Let's Kill Hitler was fun, though not without a niggling problem. A Good Man... eh. I had much the same reaction as you throughout and especially after: Most annoying was River constantly tossing out superlatives about the Doctor and his life; like nothing he did before--his other successes or low points--counted until they (River, Rory and Amy) came along. There's been so little (read: nothing) to puncture this hubris in Moffat's companions or Moffat himself; whereas Rose, Martha and Donna all had to acknowledge that the Doctor had had a long life, other companions (and major hurt) before they came along. Nope... it's all soaring to highest point blahdeblah... fall lower than he ever has before blehdebah. And during, (and after) all I could go was REALLY?.... REALLY??? Gah.

I think River's comment about the Doctor's fall to his lowest point really got my goat. Because that point, for me anyways, is still in the tenth Doctor's court, if only because RTD/Tennant could get so many of us--men included--bawling. And RTD didn't have to have River/the narrator TELLING us when it happened.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

That is the real thing, he never DELIVERS on all that bragging. We have seen Ten at a low point and broken. We have an understanding of his feelings for Rose, because RTD spends so much time nurturing those scenes. And he does the same with Martha and Donna so that the Doctor's relationship with each of these women. His feelings for THEM are clear.

With Rose we sometimes had her over confidence in him, but it came with a little catch in her voice as if she was hoping he could really save her and often she was the one who saved him. And I believed Rose loved him, so I forgave her a little beaming and bragging. But she didn't hold a match to River when it comes to "He is all about me." Which is what I thought the fans hated about Rose.

I had trouble forgiving Martha for gushing, because Martha didn't really seem to take much interest in what HE was feeling or wanted. She didn't care about what happened to him in the same way. And so it seemed like hero worship. But he did take gentle care of Martha most of the time, and he did make it clear how he felt about Rose. And the only time I think Donna started gushing was when she was full of the Doctor/Donna power and then she is quickly proven wrong.

River is supposed to know him even better than Rose and she cares for him as the most important person in her life. He loves her. Or so she keeps telling us, but we actually never see any evidence of their great romance. Of of him as he father-figure which is very disturbing given everything else. In fact, what I see is a manufactured relationship, one that is all in River's head, despite the references to picnics and dancing. I keep thinking that she is reading him wrong, because I don't get to read him at all with her, other than his bumbling (in the case of Eleven) or hostile (in the case of Ten) confusion around her. Essentially River is telling us this story and I wish we could see it.

[sensiblecat.livejournal.com]

Good Man was a string of clever Moff ideas/gags sewn together with a plot that would make a cobweb look strong. Far too much fan service and poetry bad enough to shame a fleet of Vogons.

To be honest, I can't keep a straight face when I read reams of breathless meta by otherwise intelligent people analysing the mythic and religious iconography.

And two series in, the fact remains that I simply cannot stand Eleven. It's not just Tennant fangirling, because that clip of Four was a delight.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

Yes, I did finish it and it was a mismash as you say. I was happy to see the Spot pirates again, but I did feel that they were just tossed in as fan service to me. And, of course, the Judoon and the Cybermen and the Roman Rory and the Silirians all struck me as over the top. If he had spent the 17 minutes of gushing on actually plot development with these people, I might have enjoyed the story a lot more. But...no...we had a brag fest to endure.

And, yes, isn't Four refreshing after a series and a half of Eleven? I was actually looking for another episode where the Doctor is this legendary figure to see how it was handled. But I was very impressed with it in retrospect, because while I had remembered that DW used to lean heavily of well written lines, I hadn't realized it would be so relaxing to see the Doctor's air of inner confidence portrayed rather than narrated.

[crimedoc1.livejournal.com]

*sigh* I do love Four. And of course now we know where Eleven got the idea to threaten a bunch of Daleks with a Jammy Dodger!

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

Sadly, this is becoming the story of Eleven for me. The show is not only leaning too heavily on the comic or superficial in key relationships, it is also borrowing far too much from the past. There is no real excuse for the "new teeth" line being pilfered. Every Doctor has noted something different about his new body and River could certainly have simply commented about her added bounce. It would have kept things original. But no, the show had to refer to a far cleverer writer's clever line.

Sad.

And, I didn't really miss Four, particularly, until I saw this clip. And, then, I was reminded of what the Doctor used to be, the gravitas he commanded despite all the crappy sets and pathetic effects. Now, he's some kind of glittery class clown.

Rae