Waters of Mars initial reaction post.

[intrikate88]

Eep. eep. Someone hold me. And tell me that Christmas is going to be happy and fun adventures with all the recent companions there having fun. LOTS OF FUN GODDAMMIT.

I mean. It was good. Well-written (but so was Children of Earth, and fuck I wanted to throw myself off something high after that.) And the lighthearted moments I clung to as tightly as a Doctor/Rose hug, his annoyance with the funny robot while simultaneously caring for it. And "Title. Rank. Intention." "Doctor. Doctor. Fun." teehee, that's right.

(From when he ran back in to the station with the mad idea to save them all.)

andi_horton : i do love it when he babbles
andi_horton : "who needs atom clamps? i have a funny robot!"
intrikate88 : he's got a funny robot
andi_horton : we sound like a chorus
andi_horton : he sings "i've got a funny robot!"
intrikate88 : and adelaide's like "fuck, might as well go down on my own terms"
andi_horton : and we sing "robot! robot! funny funny robot!"
andi_horton : and some barrel chested men basso "he's got a funny ro BOT"


But yeah. That was tortuous and dark, listening to them realize there was no way out, that that was it, the end. Listening to the Doctor hear all of what he's probably heard too many times before. And then- he violates time. He decides that he makes the rules since he's the only one left to make them, and... I just don't know. I can't say that rules where you leave people to die and breaking them means saving people are good ones. But even he can't violate time that way, not really- it all springs back, and even if he's changed the details, as he said, it all pretty much ends the same.

YOU CAN'T BELIEVE YOUR OWN PRESS, DOCTOR, SERIOUSLY. WHEN YOU START CALLING YOURSELF THE FIRE AND RAGE AND ICE AND HEART OF AN EMO RAINCLOUD YOU ARE JUST COLLAPSING INWARD.

He needs a good slapping from Donna and Sarah Jane.

So on Sarah Jane Adventures, in the recent eps "The Madwoman In the Attic", that took place in 2059 too, I'm pretty sure. Odd coincidence. Time was changing all over the place, and about the same time. So what, the Doctor just walks away from Sarah Jane's wedding and heads to Mars, and it all ripples back? Or maybe it had a little to do with the device in "The Eternity Trap"?

I think I'm going to go watch this week's Sarah Jane Adventures, and maybe a little Big Bang Theory. I need something lighthearted and fun, after this episode.

Comments

[thunderemerald.livejournal.com]

See, this is exactly the episode I've been sadistically wanting ever since The Fires of Pompeii -- and ESPECIALLY since I heard there would be no perma-companion this season. Because:

1. What happens when it ISN'T an alien invasion, and the hard choice is still really the easier one? What happens when he actually has to stand by and watch people die? Can he do it?

AND

2. What happens when he doesn't have anyone to stop him?

This episode dovetailed the answers to those sooooo nicely -- add in a little touch of the Doctor believing his own press, and wow, that was a little hint of the Master in him...

[intrikate88.livejournal.com]

Nono, I totally get that want, I think I've had it too. It's really a fascinating episode, conceptually. And if I hadn't already been having a PMSing nobody-loves-me-and-also-I'm-sick-and-why-didn't-my-doctor-call-in-my-damn-painkillers type of weekend it may have made a significant difference in my appreciation of the episode. And I've always been interested in how even his helping has a destructive side, since he's not subject to the minute ups and downs of cause and effect. And I think Adelaide really called him on that, demanding to know how he could decide the people and details that don't matter as much.

And it's so difficult to call it easier or harder, too. He could walk away, abide by the rules, let history take its course as it should- he doesn't have to face the unpredictable or the effort of doing something. But on the other hand, that harder choice is also the easier one- he realizes he isn't going to be strong enough to bear their deaths on his conscience knowing that he hadn't even tried. (And, personally, I don't get why he didn't fly the ones he saved somewhere else. They still would have been considered dead on earth, history would have continued the same. I agree with him to a degree, as I said- if the rules kill people, change the fucking rules.)

I think the Master comparison is apt, because who's to say that what was implied when the Master went crazy after looking into infinity, wasn't exactly this? Over the life of the universe, what does it matter who lives and dies, no matter if you care about them or not? What does it matter if one race out of a billion doesn't pack up and move to the next planet over? Everything still burns and ends in the death of the universe, right? So why care about anyone, why obey the rules? It's all the same. The Master didn't really have an anchor, anybody to define him and remind him what his relation to that universe is- and I think here and now, the Doctor has done the same thing to his own life.

Yeah, maybe I will watch this again after all. But after the hormones gtfo and I get some painkillers for my shoulder.

[thunderemerald.livejournal.com]

Amen re: hormones. But in my case, they just make me MORE sadistic toward characters I love. ;)

here via who_daily

[neohippie.livejournal.com]

I can't say that rules where you leave people to die and breaking them means saving people are good ones.

This is what made the episode too much of a bummer for me as well, because the Doctor is set up so it's like... no matter what he does it's bad. Either he leaves people to die horribly or he violates the laws of time. It's just all bad all around.

Torchwood is That Kind of Show, where I expect the ending to be a total downer, but I want happy fun Doctor Who back too.