The End of Time, pt. 2

[rm]

If given what we were given in part 1, this was pretty close to what I would have done with part 2. That's a little goddamn weird.

1. The redemption of the Master was AWESOME. I do have to confess I was disappointed we didn't get any Harold SAxon-esque musical numbers this time though. I LOVED that.

2. Also, yes, thank you for dialing back on the cracky.

3. The performances were great. Just people's eyes. The Doctor (more bondage for the win!) and the Master specifically.

4. The Doctor's utter love and admiration for the Master.

5. Rose, returned, again -- in a way that didn't suck or lessen the impact of the Rose narrative. Win.

6. Jesus fucking Christ the Weeping Angels reference. Oh god, they are something horrible related to the Time Lords. Oh god oh god oh god. These things get WORSE AND WORSE and I'm writing a story about them EATING JACK'S EYES.

7. So let's talk about this Jack thing.

I think it was adorable and interesting and thorny and I loved it. We don't know how long it's been since CoE. We don't know if he's still grieving or is having a bad night after he's mostly over it or what.

We don't know if the Doctor is getting Jack laid or if the Doctor is telling Jack something bigger with "His name is Alonso." What does the pronoun stand for? "The guy who's about to sit down next to you" or "the guy that's going to help you heal" or "the next person you're going to fall in love with"?

It's wonderfully open-ended, and because Alonso is young and has a lot of similar features to Ianto (personality and facial), it creates a lot of potential issues for the fannish mind to consider -- does Jack fuck him then freak out? Do they get into a several week fling and Alonso can see that Jack is broken about something and asks? Do they get into a relationship and Jack eventually explains and then hey have lots of fights because Jack isn't seeing Alonso but Ianto?

These are all MARVELOUS questions, but they also don't address the way this moment also speaks wonderfully to the Jack/Doctor relationship. Is this an apology from Ten? Or a recognition that Jack is in pain? Is he telling Jack to get on with things? Is he giving him permission? How much knowledge is this gesture made with? And look at Jack, after everything, taking it and latching on to it.

I know a lot of people don't like Barrowman's performance in this moment or the way the direction was handled, but I loved it -- it was like someone using muscles they are out of practice with -- look at Jack, nervous and overcompensating and unsure and a little queasy -- we haven't seen this since he asks Ianto on a date in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and those were different wounds.

Look, people, I thought it was AWESOME.

8. Time Lords blow.

9. Wilf! We all love Wilf, but I also love the function Wilf serves. Doctor Who does a lot of romanticizing of war, but it also spends a lot of time trying to de-romanticize it in various ways. Wilf is the quietest of these ways, the most ordinary, and I think the writing there is consistently spectacular.

10. Ten saying goodbye to all those companions. And them sensing it, somehow. Great great great.

11. Martha & Mickey -- WTF? I'm so WTF the on this. We liked Tom; Martha liked Tom, and I like Mickey (and he looks GREAT with the facial hair) but I'm Just Not Getting that. WHAT THE FUCK? WHAT THE FUCK? WHAT THE FUCK FUCK FUCK WAS THAT? Also what were they doing? Are they rogue Torchwood agents now? WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT? AAAAAAAARGH!!!

12. The Ood. The Ood may be one of the best things the new series has brought us. So lovely, so elegant. And the line about the story. ALL TIMES ARE NOW, MOTHERFUCKERS. Ood!

13. So, Matt Smith, eh? I don't even watch old Who and I feel like we're in for a real throwback with Eleven. Very mad and wacky. It could work. But it's the human interactions that make this show go for me, so until he's saving the world, until he's sad, until he's running from himself, I won't really have a verdict.

Comments

[rednwhiterose.livejournal.com]

Re: 11

I heard about that and I did a OMGWTFAREYOUSERIOUS?!!?!?! Then I realized that was RTD having his final "I'm going to make everything bright and cherry and sunshiny and happy for all the characters I created because this is my last hurrah so there :OP *ptttt*" Not sure how I feel about that completely (post-knee jerk reaction that is). I will say I'm tired of the RTD related drama and am so ready for Stephen Moffat and his band of awesome stories.

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Oh hell, when Wilf knocked four times in the radiation booth - Elayna and I both gasped "Oh, Wilf!" Oh, Wilf. Oh, no. That's going to leave a mark.

And speaking of Wilf, oh, I love him so much. Love the Master's redemption, yes. But I had a running internal narrative of "oh, Wilf, I love you" the whole time.

I was tearing up from the moment poor Wilf knocked onward. (And that was so well-done, that feeling that the Doctor was going to get to live, and then the knocking and the oh-shit SILENCE.) But the tears hit when Ood Sigma said "We will sing to you." I kinda have a thing abut that - I want to be sung to when I go, if possible, and chances are high that it will be sudden and I won't get that. But if we know it's coming. That is actually in the instructions for the family, the singing.

I, too, was like "DUDE WEEPING ANGELS."

And I loved the Jack bar scene. Tipsy Adipose!

[laufeyette.livejournal.com]

4. OTP.

6. *shudders*

7. So cute! Also, the Doctor already knew Alonso (Voyage of the Damned).

11. I assume Martha hooked him up with a UNIT position, and that this scene was a healthy bit (possibly years) removed from where we left them in Journey's End.

All of my thoughts (and some pics) are here. Tl;dr: I LOVED IT!

*happy sigh*

[rm.livejournal.com]

I'm now going to have to re-watch Voyage of the Damned, which I don't like that much, just to get a better handle on Alonso. We can assume this was after that, because Alonso looks like he needs a drink -- but hadn't he been shot? I gotta figure out the recovery time of the future.

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

11. She made a reference to him convincing her to "go freelance".

[dr-is-in.livejournal.com]

I was very WTF about Mickey & Martha. But after watching it? I can see it, especially if it was Journeys End that brought them together.

But it does almost have this undercurrent of RTD throwing together the girl he rejected for Rose's memory with the man Rose rejected for him.

[laufeyette.livejournal.com]

Ah! Re-watch still needed, lol.

[rm.livejournal.com]

See, and I saw it through the lens of Doctor Who and the Doomed Interracial Relationships.

[laufeyette.livejournal.com]

I don't remember exactly what happened to him. Can Jack travel in time now, or just space? I certainly hope he doesn't get shot in Jack's future...

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Me too - there was a lot there!

[dr-is-in.livejournal.com]

Yeah, RTD doesn't exactly have the best track record when it comes to dealing with racial issues and such. I was surprised we even saw them. They managed to keep it under wraps under than a few vague rumors.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Word. Which is the other worrying possibility there, but I assume the Doctor wouldn't do that to what I thought was an obviously grieving Jack.

[therealycats.livejournal.com]

I really dislike the Mickey/Martha pairing. I love both characters, and I'm glad they're both happy, because they deserve to be happy, but the implication is that Martha left her fiance for Mickey, and that...that makes her just like Rose, and I really, really hate that.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

I have said a great many things about RTD and endings, and many of them are critical and/or unkind. I may have needed martinis after the end of Doctor Who S3. And I won't take any of those things back, but I'm going to say that he completely nailed it tonight. I'm...you know, I'm happy.

6. Not just the Weeping Angels, but gloves.

7. I loved it. LOVED IT. I mean, damn. I ship that all over the place, and near-instantaneously. I think it's a lot of things all at once, and I think Ten is looking out for both of them because they've got qualities that could make them each a good thing for the other.

7a. Also, how marvelous and significant is it to have two gay actors playing these characters, and for it to be awesome and acceptable?

9. I thought that was absolutely amazing. And fuck almighty, I love Bernard Cribbins. Superlative.

9a. I was joking a little while back (like, weeks ago) to someone about RTD's saying the knocking prophecy wasn't what people thought it would be, and was all, "It's Wilf!" Because, you know, he was the last person you'd think.

9b. And HOLY CRAP, TEN BORROWED A POUND FROM DONNA'S DEAD FATHER TO BUY A LOTTERY TICKET.

10. This was beautiful. Not just saying goodbye, but doing it at significant times, or in times of need. This was the closure I was fearing we wouldn't get, and it was brilliant.

11. I was dead surprised to see Noel Clarke in there. He'd been all "Oh, I'm not in the Christmas episode," and threw me off the scent. Tricksy. I have a theory on the Martha/Mickey thing, mainly that it all goes down after The Stolen Earth because of Jack, but I'm still pretty WTF about Tom Milligan. What did he do?! He was lovely, and Martha wanted to be normal and things! Also, Freema looks badass with braids.

12. Ood <3

13. Eleven's doing the "WHEEE! CRAZY REGENERATED TIME LORD!" thing, and I heard a rumor they're going a little bit Five with it (i.e. something's a bit off), but we'll see. We only get a glimpse of him, so yeah. No verdict. Also, I love how he's got more bulk than Tennant and it showed in the clothes.

[(Anonymous)]

ハネムーンに行って、お部屋で写真を撮ってもいいけど。
かなりファンキーなお部屋だけど、家族を招待して
結婚式する？

[rm.livejournal.com]

See, I try not to comment on race in Doctor Who, because racial issues in Britain are different than here and I am just not that informed to do it in a way that's relevant and clear, but the consistency with which the interracial relationships blew up (Rose and Mickey being the _good_ one compared to Ianto and Lisa and Beth and her husband) really unsettled me. Also the complete fail with South Asian characters has been epic.

[dr-is-in.livejournal.com]

Who unfortunately has a rather long and tragic record in regards to racism and minorities. One of the worst is Talons of Weng-Chiang with asian stereotypes and yellow face.

[rm.livejournal.com]

7a. I HAD NO IDEA THAT IS SO AWESOME. I'd actually love for Jack and Alonso to be an ongoing story line for TW, S4 if they address some of the many issues that could be going on there.

[laufeyette.livejournal.com]

LOL - no. He couldn't! That would just be awful.

My immediate thought was that this was post CoE Jack, which would be well post VotD, so hopefully Alonso is safe. :)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Well, Jack and time... god knows. But yeah, it's gotta be post-VotD. Someone else can write the fic of grimness where it's not, but that ain't gonna be me.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

Innit?! Like, you know that couldn't have happened on a show with Doctor Who's target audience 10 or 20 years ago.

I wonder if people will write Tovey/Barrowman RPS, or if the absence of the 'straight man succumbing to forbidden desires' them will make it less appealing?

[rm.livejournal.com]

It's no fun for the fetishizers if everyone's _really_ gay.

[wednesday]

I'm frustrated right now, because I'm doing my standard spoiler-gathering before watching the episode tomorrow? And after sifting through the post-first run British wave of "THE DETAILS! AND OH MY GOD THE OTHER DETAILS!" on fora, etc., finally getting to a detailed recap?

I'm seeing a lot of things which could be reffing G1 Transformers, and I can't decide whether those streams should cross.

Stupid geek brain, all cross-referencing the wrong things. I have no slash powers anymore. I just have robot-seeing powers.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Sigh.

Their loss?

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

6. The idea that the Weeping Angels are related to the Time Lords is squicky -- but I could see the Old Time (Rassillon era) Time Lords making biological weapons like that. The two dissidents' pose makes me think it's some sort of formal ritual of sorrow that they're enacting.

8. That the Doctor found his own people so monstrous that he would commit genocide against them is just so horrific and sad.

9. Wilf was awesome. A former soldier who never used his weapon but always remembered his service -- it makes sense that he's the Doctor's Companion for this.

12. The Ood are *lovely* -- pacifist, kind and full of compassion.

13. The Doctor is always bugfuck crazy right after his regeneration. He usually has a Companion or three to keep him from walking into heavy machinery.