The End of Time, pt. 1

[rm]

OMGWTFBBQ!!!!



Well, hrrrrr.

1. I think it's too ambitious. This already feels like a three-parter, but it only has two parts. This really needed to ramp up into what it is, the intensity got too high too fast.

2. The quiet emo moments were really the best. Man, Ten crying is HOT. And all that Ood shit was creepy.

3. John Simm is a really good actor. And it looks like filming this vacillated between really fun and completely sucktacular. All that food stuff. Food scenes SUCK.

4. OMG, the porn. THE PORN. That little smile on the Master's face when he was being buckled into the straight jacket. Hello, hello, hello. HELLO.

5. No Jack yet. This is good. This means he may be there for the regeneration, this is my hope.

6. This really is pretty damn audacious. And the rebirth of Gallifrey/Timelords is a really smart plot line since the Doctor is getting close to the limit unless the council or whatever it is grants him some more. Er, yeah, this is the first time I've really felt stymied by my lack of old who knowledge.

7. So that first shit with the regeneration of the Master? What a waste of Lucy Saxon. What was with all the women basically being witches with potions? And "The Book of Saxon"? What now? The prison was named Broadfell? Seriously? I've never found RTD to be more misogynistic than he is fucked up (i.e., his issues as a writer tend to be more interesting to me than offensive), and this happened. Dude, REALLY?

8. OBAMA, WTF? Actually, could a Brit living in Britain currently help me out here? How is Obama perceived? Was this satire that made sense to you all in an eye-rolling at the believe he can fix everything thing or what? I was like confused. A lot confused. Also I hate when they do scenes that are supposed to be White House press conferences and of course everything looks wrong.

9. Naismith = ne Smith? Also, woah, incesty with the daughter there.

10. OMG, Whoniverse wardrobe department, I love you. But "The Master Race"? Seriously? You went there? Man. Really?

11. I'm glad Ianto got to miss this one, such as it is.

Woah.

Comments

[woogledesigns.livejournal.com]

I would be interested to know which artistic works proclaiming her role as the virgin queen Elizabeth personally commissioned, if you can recall them. I was aware of the nipples at court, and had seen that as evidence of her seeing a role and inhabiting it, rather than creating it all herself.

It's a bit tenuous to suggest she somehow inherited all this from her grandfather- he died 20 years before she was born. It is more likely that she taught herself that level of PR acumen through her extensive reading, which may have drawn upon the history of her own family and how they had secured power.

But the original point I was making was that to go through your entire life never having a sexual relationship- or any romance beyond some version or other of courtly love- not out of choice but out of self preservation and national duty can be seen as a deeply unfair condition of living as a woman of power in a patriarchal society. So the Doctor, used by RTD, uses the magic of time travel to relieve that isolation. They got married after all- it hardly sounds like a one night stand.

Do we really think that Elizabeth I would not have taken a husband of her choice had she really had that choice- again, given her obvious affection for Dudley and Devereux? So why does it require knowing 'bugger all' about Tudor history to see the Doctor having a fulfilling relationship with Elizabeth I as something to redress that unfairness?

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

Oh I don't think she got it from him directly, but certainly, the documents were there and there were people running around who'd seen it. Henry VIII was less into that sort of propaganda later in his rein, but used it in his early rein. Again, plenty of surviving witnesses to become advisers and documentation. She was bright and used all the political tools available to her.

Alas, I no longer have access to the materials I used then. I can poke around and see if I can find my paper. No promises though. I've moved often and I haven't much strength for digging through boxes and things.

I honestly don't know. There is an argument some people make that as she was alive an old enough to remember the fall of Catherine Howard, she may have been wary of marriage due to it's connection with death. I don't necessarily subscribe to it, but it's an option. People arguing it point to just how close she came with Dudley, only to pull away at the last minute. Of course, that can be argued three or four other ways. She may have been hetero-romantic, but hypo or asexual. some people are. She may have been molested by Catherine Parr's last husband. (There were contemporary rumors.) She may have had strong appetites secretly indulged or suppressed for political reasons. All of these are theories floated in the literature.

I have no proof one way or another of her sexual psychology or sexual history, so I feel uncomfortable holding a firm opinion of any type. It's too easy to impose my own biases as others have done, so i like to stay out of it.

[woogledesigns.livejournal.com]

Please do not trouble yourself unnecessarily. I would be grateful for even an indication of what to research or look out for. I would feel awful if you had to exert any more effort than recollection for such a small matter.

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

It's rather embarrassing that I can't remember these details. I used to know this stuff inside out. I do know the coronation stuff was absolutely deliberate. I remember commissioned poems later, but I no longer have the details stored in my head.

[woogledesigns.livejournal.com]

I used to know how to solve quadratic equations, but now I can barely connect a television to my DVD player.

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

How on earth, on the text-ev as presented in The End of Time and The Shakespeare Code do you parse the relationship between the Doctor and Elizabeth I as "fulfilling"? She appears in TSC referring to him as "her sworn enemy" and shrieking "Off with his head" (it's another incarnation of the middle-aged woman as harpy figure of which RTD is so fond) and Ten's implication that the marriage to "Good Queen Bess" had been a mistake (and the body language he used, as well as his words, was pretty unequivocal on that point)?

[woogledesigns.livejournal.com]

Because, whatever regrets and recriminations that followed, they wouldn't have married in the first place unless there were serious and satisfying feelings for both of them. Do you imagine the Tenth Doctor as the abusive (or abused) husband type?

And that doesn't answer my question: "why does it require knowing 'bugger all' about Tudor history to see the Doctor having a fulfilling relationship with Elizabeth I as something to redress that unfairness?"

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

Do you imagine the Tenth Doctor as the abusive (or abused) husband type?

Since you ask, I wouldn't marry a man who was unable to respect a serious, informed and heartfelt "No!" from a woman, and, yes, I would take that lack of ability to respect someone's right to draw her own boundaries as possibly indicative of an abusive personality type.

[woogledesigns.livejournal.com]

I don't recall asking if you would marry the Tenth Doctor? However I don't think either of us are really profiting from this discussion any further. I would be very interested to read your paper when it is published, I'm sure it will be both informative and challenging.