Doctor Who: The Time of the Doctor
Dec. 27th, 2013 12:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kerravonsenThis one was extra-special for me because I got to watch it as it broadcast, with my family. There were the usual "What's that?" "Who are they?" ... I really should have worn my "I'll explain later" t-shirt, shouldn't I? Because I had to say it often enough. But I did explain later. Though brother #2 kept on interrupting the explanation with more questions. "Why?" this and "Why?" that. Stuff that wasn't relevant to what I was trying to explain. Even in the car on the way home! (When I was recounting the paradox of "The Day of the Daleks" to Youngest Niece, and B#2 was asking "Are the Daleks robots or are they alive? But where did they come from? Why do they want to exterminate everything?" I had to ask him to shut up and let me finish first. (sigh) I don't remember him being this bad before.)
Me to Nephew E: So what else did we learn in this episode that we didn't know before?
Nephew E: The Doctor knows how to make toys.
Anyway, apart from minor irritations, it was great. There was even a point where I almost cried.
This episode was Moffat saying, "Well, that about wraps it up, folks!" And he did wrap it up, too! I had actually given up on him explaining why the TARDIS blew up back in Eleven's first season. Even better, he gave us a double twist by answering questions that we thought had already been answered in "The Name of the Doctor". Good fake-out there, Moffat!
And there was so much in this, so many references, how on earth did they fit so much in?
Hereby follows rambling burbling and inaccurate quotes in no particular order. Those who have not seen the episodewon't understand a word shouldn't be reading this anyway.
"I said put me on a ship. I didn't say put me on a Dalek ship. Don't put me on a Dalek ship when I'm holding a broken bit of Dalek!"
(I'm glad that gag was only repeated once. Two times was funny. Three times would have been too much.)
"You're naked!"
"Yes, I'm going to church."
(While it was a cheap joke, it was also a nice bit of culture-clash)
The double meaning of "The Man Who Stayed For Christmas."
"Our invisibility field isn't working."
A wooden Cyberman! Ha!
Fish fingers and custard! (One of the things I had to explain later.)
Oh, and halelujah! A companion who says "Go ahead and kill me; you're going to kill me anyway" when threatened by the bad guys. At LAST!
The Silence:
"They were bred for the Confessional - you confess, and then forget what you said." (That is brilliant! That they were created for a benign purpose, and yet managed to turn into some of the most CREEEEEEEEEPY villains in New Who.)
"There will now be an unscheduled faith change. From this moment on, I dedicate this church to one cause. Silence. The Doctor will not speak his name, and war will not begin. Silence will fall!"
(Kind of a lose-lose situation, since war did begin... but it still wasn't as bad as the war that could happen if the Time War rekindled.)
"They were a breakaway cult..." (That explains a lot)
"Don't change the past! Change the future!"
"You've had practice at restraining your inner psychopath for years. Don't fail."
Part where I almost cried:
When Clara was crying at the Doctor dying and giving up, when she whispered her plea to the Crack In The Wall.
"And now it's time for one last bow, like all your other selves. Eleven's hour is over now. The clock is striking Twelves." (How terribly fitting)
"Trouble with Daleks is they take so long to say anything. I'll probably die of boredom before they say anything."
"Are we forgetting Captain Grumpy? I didn't call myself the Doctor during the Time War, but it was still a regeneration."
Regeneration:
* Moffat must have gotten sick of all the people asking "But what about the twelve regeneration limit, then? What you gonna do about that, huh? You can't break the rules!" So I'm glad that they spelled out ALL the objections, put it out there in front of everyone, and then shut them up completely, on two levels: (a) he now has another regeneration cycle and, (b) NEVER tell the Doctor he has to follow the rules.
* Golly, these regeneration scenes are getting longer and longer and more over-the-top. Well, perhaps not. Ten still has the record for "longest time between regeneration starting and ending".
"Raggedy Man, good night."
“I will not forget one line of this. Not one day. I swear. I will always remember when the Doctor was me.”
* Oh my, I wasn't expecting the new guy to be able to do bug-eyed/manic/crazy like that.
“No worries, stay calm, one question. Do you happen to know how to fly this thing?”
Oh please please please don't say that Eleven's promise to never forget Clara has just been rendered null and void! PLEASE! You can't do that to us! NOOOOOOO!
Fridge Logic:
* How could that planet have only a few minutes of daylight and hours of night? If it was rapidly spinning, it would have equally short nights. If the town was near the pole, and the planet had an axial tilt, the amount of daylight would change with the seasons, so there would be times when it was mostly daylight and very little night. IT MAKES NO SENSE!
* Where did they get their food from?
* I wonder whether Clara will actually make it back for the rest of Christmas Dinner?
On Reflection:
One of the things I appreciate about Eleven's whole run was the repeated theme of things not always being as they seem. Not in a creepy way, but in a "there are three sides to truth" way. One group sees something from one angle, another group sees it from another angle, and they are both the truth as they see it... but they aren't the same. Or maybe it's like layers of an onion; first we're shown the surface, but then we later find that there's another deeper level to it... and then another. I don't just mean the tangle of time and destiny that is the whole story of River Song, the Silence, Trenzalore, Amy and Rory -- though that is certainly part of it. But I also mean things like The Pandorica being the prison of a Destroyer of Worlds - who is also the Doctor. Like the Great Intelligence's account of the killing fields of Trenzalore, making the Doctor out to be a bloodthirsty killer of millions... when it turned out not to be like that at all... though from the Great Intelligence's point of view, he wasn't lying. Like the monster that only Van Gough could see... turning out to be a real monster from a very vicious species... and then turning out to be blind and crippled and dying. Layers of an onion. The Star Whale who turned out to be an old and loving creature (and that the Starship UK didn't need to be a rerun of "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" after all).
I like it. Let's hope that kind of thing continues with Twelve. Though I might perhaps like to take a break from a tangled timey-wimey story arc that takes three seasons to resolve...
Me to Nephew E: So what else did we learn in this episode that we didn't know before?
Nephew E: The Doctor knows how to make toys.
Anyway, apart from minor irritations, it was great. There was even a point where I almost cried.
This episode was Moffat saying, "Well, that about wraps it up, folks!" And he did wrap it up, too! I had actually given up on him explaining why the TARDIS blew up back in Eleven's first season. Even better, he gave us a double twist by answering questions that we thought had already been answered in "The Name of the Doctor". Good fake-out there, Moffat!
And there was so much in this, so many references, how on earth did they fit so much in?
Hereby follows rambling burbling and inaccurate quotes in no particular order. Those who have not seen the episode
"I said put me on a ship. I didn't say put me on a Dalek ship. Don't put me on a Dalek ship when I'm holding a broken bit of Dalek!"
(I'm glad that gag was only repeated once. Two times was funny. Three times would have been too much.)
"You're naked!"
"Yes, I'm going to church."
(While it was a cheap joke, it was also a nice bit of culture-clash)
The double meaning of "The Man Who Stayed For Christmas."
"Our invisibility field isn't working."
A wooden Cyberman! Ha!
Fish fingers and custard! (One of the things I had to explain later.)
Oh, and halelujah! A companion who says "Go ahead and kill me; you're going to kill me anyway" when threatened by the bad guys. At LAST!
The Silence:
"They were bred for the Confessional - you confess, and then forget what you said." (That is brilliant! That they were created for a benign purpose, and yet managed to turn into some of the most CREEEEEEEEEPY villains in New Who.)
"There will now be an unscheduled faith change. From this moment on, I dedicate this church to one cause. Silence. The Doctor will not speak his name, and war will not begin. Silence will fall!"
(Kind of a lose-lose situation, since war did begin... but it still wasn't as bad as the war that could happen if the Time War rekindled.)
"They were a breakaway cult..." (That explains a lot)
"Don't change the past! Change the future!"
"You've had practice at restraining your inner psychopath for years. Don't fail."
Part where I almost cried:
When Clara was crying at the Doctor dying and giving up, when she whispered her plea to the Crack In The Wall.
"And now it's time for one last bow, like all your other selves. Eleven's hour is over now. The clock is striking Twelves." (How terribly fitting)
"Trouble with Daleks is they take so long to say anything. I'll probably die of boredom before they say anything."
"Are we forgetting Captain Grumpy? I didn't call myself the Doctor during the Time War, but it was still a regeneration."
Regeneration:
* Moffat must have gotten sick of all the people asking "But what about the twelve regeneration limit, then? What you gonna do about that, huh? You can't break the rules!" So I'm glad that they spelled out ALL the objections, put it out there in front of everyone, and then shut them up completely, on two levels: (a) he now has another regeneration cycle and, (b) NEVER tell the Doctor he has to follow the rules.
* Golly, these regeneration scenes are getting longer and longer and more over-the-top. Well, perhaps not. Ten still has the record for "longest time between regeneration starting and ending".
"Raggedy Man, good night."
“I will not forget one line of this. Not one day. I swear. I will always remember when the Doctor was me.”
* Oh my, I wasn't expecting the new guy to be able to do bug-eyed/manic/crazy like that.
“No worries, stay calm, one question. Do you happen to know how to fly this thing?”
Oh please please please don't say that Eleven's promise to never forget Clara has just been rendered null and void! PLEASE! You can't do that to us! NOOOOOOO!
Fridge Logic:
* How could that planet have only a few minutes of daylight and hours of night? If it was rapidly spinning, it would have equally short nights. If the town was near the pole, and the planet had an axial tilt, the amount of daylight would change with the seasons, so there would be times when it was mostly daylight and very little night. IT MAKES NO SENSE!
* Where did they get their food from?
* I wonder whether Clara will actually make it back for the rest of Christmas Dinner?
On Reflection:
One of the things I appreciate about Eleven's whole run was the repeated theme of things not always being as they seem. Not in a creepy way, but in a "there are three sides to truth" way. One group sees something from one angle, another group sees it from another angle, and they are both the truth as they see it... but they aren't the same. Or maybe it's like layers of an onion; first we're shown the surface, but then we later find that there's another deeper level to it... and then another. I don't just mean the tangle of time and destiny that is the whole story of River Song, the Silence, Trenzalore, Amy and Rory -- though that is certainly part of it. But I also mean things like The Pandorica being the prison of a Destroyer of Worlds - who is also the Doctor. Like the Great Intelligence's account of the killing fields of Trenzalore, making the Doctor out to be a bloodthirsty killer of millions... when it turned out not to be like that at all... though from the Great Intelligence's point of view, he wasn't lying. Like the monster that only Van Gough could see... turning out to be a real monster from a very vicious species... and then turning out to be blind and crippled and dying. Layers of an onion. The Star Whale who turned out to be an old and loving creature (and that the Starship UK didn't need to be a rerun of "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" after all).
I like it. Let's hope that kind of thing continues with Twelve. Though I might perhaps like to take a break from a tangled timey-wimey story arc that takes three seasons to resolve...
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no subject
Date: 2013-12-26 03:03 pm (UTC)I too wondered how Christmas survived if it was always Winter and the sun only appeared briefly, especially considering the clear lack of advanced technology.
Wooden cyberman good joke, especially with the sonic screwdriver fail. However there was clearly some tech involved.
The explanation of the Silence's origins doesn't make sense. If you forget your sins then you'd only go on repeating the same mistakes. Oh well, it would keep them coming back to confess again.
Why were the Weeping angels around the village?
For a clever man he can be dumb sometimes. Asking the Mother Superior how she survived was not bright!
Why does the crack in time look like a crooked smile? Or is it just me.
Eleven certainly went out with a bang! Moffat certainly took the phrase "Eleventh hour" rather literally.
no subject
Date: 2013-12-26 08:13 pm (UTC)No, they didn't forget their sins, they forgot their confession.
Why were the Weeping angels around the village?
Because they, too, had heard the signal, and come. And the Church Of The Papal Mainframe had been mistaken in their belief that they'd gotten there first: the Weeping Angels had gotten there first.
Why does the crack in time look like a crooked smile?
Why not? Do you not recall that all the Cracks-in-the-Universe were the exact same shape?
no subject
Date: 2013-12-26 09:46 pm (UTC)Hubby pointed out that even if the Angels arrived after with their temporal hopping it would change.