Waters of Mars

[rm]

"You're only 27-years-old."

Yes, Torchwood fans, that's when I started crying. Tell me I wasn't alone.

"Oh this bloody job never gave me a chance." Oh HAI THERE TORCHWOOD REFERENCE.

...

Oh CRAZY CRAZY TEN HUBRIS. NOW YOU ARE THE MASTER's PERFECT BOYFRIEND.

Also, seriously... CoE parallels. Once again Doctor Who making what happened there much, much easier to live with, because it provides the act and the context for Jack's actions and the consequences of him having chosen differently. And wow, the Doctor so can't deal with Jack because he hates himself.

I love the degree to which we feel the Doctor really needs to regenerate soon, because he's become dangerous.

There are so many echoes of so many weird things in here... including the Ood.

Also, who else is utterly, completely, totally convinced, like from the second the Doctor start monologue-ing about about how Adelaide inspires her daughter that Jack is absolutely, definitely, descended from her.

Hey, close up of the TARDIS central column -- that's a goddamn film spool in the middle moving up and down. HOW GREAT IS THAT AS META? FUCK ME THIS SHOW IS RAD.

Oh, Doctor, you've done a very bad thing.

Also, hello, channeling Nine. That's some rad acting there, DT.

I know cannon will never tell us but is this why the Doctor couldn't step in re: CoE or is CoE why he went and did something dumb like this or did CoE happen because he did this shit? Because I really feel like while TW addresses Doctor Who explicitly, Doctor Who can only address Torchwood implicitly, and IT'S RIGHT HERE, KIDS.

Ood! I called it, Ood! (they really are the best fucking thing the new series has brought us). Ood!

Also, not only had Jack better be there for the regeneration, I have to say, that while we'll never (we hope) get a permanent Doctor death in canon, in fanon, my feeling after this episode is that Jack _must_ be there when the Doctor does finally truly die, because it is the only way to resolve the control/comfort/time dramarama shit between them.

OH MY FUCKING GOD, PEOPLE THIS IS WHY I WATCH THIS SHOW.

Comments

[thunderemerald.livejournal.com]

THIS! ALL THIS AND MORE! OMG!

The entire time I was watching, I went back and forth between CAPSLOCK FLAILYHANDS and utter... utter... silence.

Now I want to rewatch CoE. And then I want to read Ten/Jack and Ten/Master porn for the rest of my life. With some plot in, sometimes. Also, meta. I want meta.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I need to go back and rewrite my meta about how Jack is barred from heroism by his immorality as contextualized by this episode, because OMG, these shows when put together are so smart and independently, are good yarns but don't do even a fraction of what they do echoing off each other.

Also, sort of want slash between the guy who built the robot and the second in commend before everything went bad.

[thunderemerald.livejournal.com]

I want to read that now now now. ::grabbyhands::

I also want talking-fic between Ten and Jack, post-WoM and post-CoE, where Ten is forced to admit that Jack is stronger than him, because he was able to let people die. So so so fuxx0red. (And then porn.)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Also, because Ten is crazy, he's going to feel morally obligated to try to be relationshippy with Jack in the post-CoE/WoM world you and I are suddenly talking about. And won't that be a toxic clusterfuck that Jack will be all "DO NOT WANT" about. People talk about Jack not getting shit and not growing up. But the Doctor is a bazillion times worse.

[thunderemerald.livejournal.com]

Would he try to get relationshippy, you think? Why so? Because Jack chose the TW team over Ten at the end of s3, so now he's one more person that Ten has lost and feels like he has to get back? Or something else?

Either way, there is fic brewing in my mind now. Oh dear.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Nah, I think it's just pure guilt with a hint of passive aggression. And I think it's so transparent. And I think Jack is very like "fuck you! you are the one person who could possibly understand where I am right now, and you think this is how to do it? fuck you. I'm not _wrong_, Doc, you're an asshole."

[torenheksje.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you got to see this. I was stunned thinking how the Doctor always treated Jack like a monster because he *can* walk away, when in fact it's the Doctor himself who is standing in front of the Giant Maw of MonsterMadness because he *can't*. And they both pay a terrible price.

I canNOT wait for December.

[thunderemerald.livejournal.com]

Passive aggression? THE DOCTOR? Never. :)

Wibble. I may attempt to write this.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

I canNOT wait for December.

That's certainly true. Whatever other opinions people may have on WoM, End of Time looks to be epic. Plus! Simm!Master with some strange timerifty thing happening to him? Lucy? Wilf & Donna? I see no bad here.

[count-to-seven.livejournal.com]

I have so many thoughts about this that I've pretty much spent the day pacing my house.

[afterthree.livejournal.com]

Hey, close up of the TARDIS central column -- that's a goddamn film spool in the middle moving up and down. HOW GREAT IS THAT AS META? FUCK ME THIS SHOW IS RAD.

WHOA. I didn't notice this but I just went back and checked the shot. COOL! Thanks for pointing that out!

[rm.livejournal.com]

I didn't fall out of love with the Whoniverse after CoE (which I really liked over all), but it was very hard to feel as intensely as I did due to its events and interact with a fandom that was spinning about in it's own freak-out that was obviously similar but felt entirely alien and weird and impossible for me to deal with. Sometimes it still is. Thank god I have f2f friends in the fandom who can sort of glance at me across a room and give a little nod of acknowledgment when it's clear something's caught me oddly.

But this, this was so... why I watch this show, why it's personal to me, why I think it's fucking art! And you know, I'm going to babble on about it, everyone else's issues or feelings about mine be damned!

So yes, I am glad I got to see it, and I am glad you said that to me, because that's the textual version of that little nod, and I appreciate the little nod a lot.

(incoherent much? me?)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Are there people out there who thought WoM sucked? Because dude, IT WAS SO RAD!

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

drool drool drool drool

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Certainly someone I know from college, and follow on Twitter, professed not to like it at all.

OTOH, there may also be overlap between those who disliked COE and those who disliked WOM.

[rm.livejournal.com]

That's what I was wondering. I suppose people who hated it are very possibly the people who think Ten is less dark than Nine, but I've always thought Ten was TERRIFYING.

[dr-is-in.livejournal.com]

If you look very closely.....the Bowie Base main control center? Is the Hub set redressed. Compare images of them looking towards the round doorway.

[jigglykat.livejournal.com]

I thought it sucked. I'm having difficultly explaining it, because I *liked* the concept. I just thought it was poorly executed.

[rm.livejournal.com]

See, that I'll listen to (the Dalek thing-y was a big narrative fail re: JE, I'll agree, and I thought we'd had so much amped up fuckery by the time Adelaide shot herself it was weirdly anti-climatic (I wanted her to steal the TARDIS and go back and nuke herself) and you can't tell me that everything worked out okay because she died on earth instead. I mean... if that turns out to be the case (if, and I doubt this, because DW never has the continuity I want, this ep gets mentioned again), then I will totally be in the haters camp.

I think my big allergy is that I feel like a lot of people are just gonna be "it's too dark" and then not discuss it. And that would drive me mad (hi, still feeling the CoE afershocks).

I wanted to know a lot more about the Mars aliens.

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Yes. All of this!

We're doing a family roundtable review tonight.

[jigglykat.livejournal.com]

I'm going to rewatch it when elrina753 and pay more attention (and keep my snarky commentary to a minimum). I just had this huge disconnect with the episode (I also had a disconnect with CoE because I found out my dog was going to be put to sleep halfway through power-watching it so I felt absolutely nothing for the characters by the end). But no, I find dark!Doctor to be interesting. It's been building up for a long time. Just... the plot and pacing of the episode felt so off to me. There was a LOT of filler stuff for an extended episode that didn't need to be extended, you know?

[rm.livejournal.com]

The pacing seemed wonky to me towards the end too. I'm sorry about your dog. And that you sort of missed getting to have a CoE reaction that was just about CoE, regardless of what it was going to be.

[gina-r-snape.livejournal.com]

I just find it soooo funny that your entire orientation to the show has Jack and Torchwood at the center.

I loved watching Tennant go from "I'm outta here" to "I can't do anything" to "I'm the master of the universe" to "oh nooooooes" all in one episode. It's like he completely skipped over the step of reasonable responsibility for monitoring the laws of time.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I got into Doctor Who through Torchwood, mostly.

Prior the only DW ep I'd seen was The Satan Pit, which I loved, but had no context for.

Combined, these two things probably show you how I orient to the Whoniverse in a pretty disturbing way.

[gina-r-snape.livejournal.com]

Not disturbing, just uniquely you. ;-) It's good.