JOHN OSTRANDER: Doctor Whose?
Doctor Who returned to TV last night and my household is thrilled. Big fans of the Doctor here; I once wrote and tried to produce a Doctor Who stage play with the idea that this was the only way I would ever get to play the Doctor. The play never got to production and, despite being the writer and the producer, I couldn’t get cast as the Doctor which tells you, right there, one of the big reasons I gave up acting.
There’s a lot to be done in this new series of episodes, including explaining how the Doctor, who was shot dead in the first episode of this season’s series of episodes, escapes (the Doctor who was killed was from 200 years down the time stream; did I mention that Doctor Who is about time travel?). If the show does not explain that by this end of this season, I will personally hunt down the show’s brilliant writer and show-runner, Stephen Moffat, and throw him into a Pandorica until he tells. (If you haven’t seen the show, don’t bother trying to understand the reference. In show in-joke.)
However, that’s not the point of this rant. When last seen, the current Doctor (Matt Smith) went to war to recover his companion, Amy Pond, and her newborn child who would grow up to become River Song who would become the Doctor’s wife at some point later in the time stream. The adult River is along for the adventure, by the way. Sound confusing, perhaps, I know; it’s a timey-wimey-wivey thing. It works. Trust me.
However, towards the end of the episode, River gives the Doctor crap about how his life is going, how he is becoming too much the warrior, and some such bilge. Excuse me? The Doctor goes up against nasty horrible bad guys that are trying to take over the Earth and/or destroy/enslave humanity and/or destroy the universe or time itself and the Doctor time and again defeats them armed with nothing but his wits and a sonic screwdriver.
This has happened before. The previous incarnation of the Doctor – David Tennant (The Doctor regenerates from time to time when they need to change the lead actor and it’s a wonderful idea that keeps the series fresh) – got taken to task by one of the worst of his enemies, a fiend called Davros who invented the Daleks who go around killing anything that isn’t a Dalek. Said fiend accuses the Doctor of manipulating his companions so that they do the dirty work so the Doctor doesn’t have to. And the Doctor appears to take him seriously! Where does the creator of the Daleks have any moral ground against the hero who has saved the universe time and again from the product of Davros’ invention?
Is the Doctor supposed to feel bad about being the hero? Am I supposed to think the Doctor is not the hero me thinks him is? The Doctor is the good guy here, folks; I don’t want him all angsty and doubting his own motives. I mean, c’mon – the next thing you know, he’ll be doubting that bow ties are cool!
I know bow ties are cool. The Doctor told me so. And I trust the Doctor.
MONDAY (Hurricane willing): Mindy Newell
Why do you trust the Doctor? The Doctor lies. He said so himself.
Just to play devil’s advocate: River is taking the Doctor to task based on what he might become. She has seen bits of his future that are completely unknown to him. She might know years or even decades of his future.
Maybe she’s warning him that the patterns he’s establishing now will lead him to become a dangerous man in the future. Maybe the patterns he’s establishing in his life now will lead to … the Valeyard!!
RTD would totally have gone there. Moffat might be a bit more restrained…though he did write a TV show called ‘Let’s Kill Hitler’
River’s also seen her own life. Beginning with Let’s Kill Hitler…
Yes!!!! Cablevision got BBCAMERICA this week!!!! I can watch Dr. Who!!!!!!!
Gonna have to catch up. Did watch some of it last night, only there was a little girl in the neighborhood named Irene. What a bitch!
BTW, I have loved Alex Kingston since her stint on ER. Loving her even more as River Song!
I think the thing with the Doctor becoming too much of a warrior is a somewhat reasonable gripe in the Who Universe. I think it’s also an acknowledgement by the producers that they need to change the direction a bit. The way the Doctor was being written up to Smith’s time, it was starting to be like they were making him almost a god. The stories were good to be sure, but the scope and scale of some of them were getting to the point of insane insofar as the “how do we top this one” factor. I think this is their way of giving an in-story reason to have more smaller scaled stories for a while.
As for the death of the Doctor and what the secret will be… Easy one that. I think they gave the big clue away in the episode “The Almost People.” They made a fake Doctor that was the Doctor. Yeah, he died at the end of it, but there were a couple of very interesting lines there if you caught them.
One of them indicated that the Doctor knew about his fate down the road. His double says something about this being his time to die and the Doctor makes a comment about the only difference being that this one they weren’t invited to. He also tells the double that his molecular memory might be saved and that it might not be the end.
The double is brought back and it’s the flesh that’s killed. Now, who is in the suit is a bit trickier, but my #1 pick would be River. It would be at this point that she kills the greatest man she’s ever known.
I tried but I couldn’t make it through the episode. It was just awful. Just a bunch of facial ticks and quirk where the acting should be and plot holes you could drive a van through. Is it just a nostalgia thing? People are willing to cut it slack because it was a part of their childhood?
Couldn’t agree more. Nu Who is full of the sort of ‘relevance’ John Byrne rains hellfire down upon and rejects a lot of what made the original series work. It’s more an exercise in the current British obsessions of celebrity, angst and superficial glamour.
The Doctor should always be portrayed as a cross between Gandalf and Douglas Bader: A right difficult sod who is, nonetheless, a true hero.