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New Doctor Who
Is all over my flist today! I did manage, even though bt was kvetchy and I had to trawl for rapidshare links. XD;
Mmmmnnn you know what I thought it would be more different. I always assumed that triumphalist note was uniquely Davies but apparently not? Meanwhile you get a sort of Moffat trope best-of, and by best-of I mean "something new next time pls". But in the excitement I'd forgotten that the season premieres aren't ever the best episodes. XD;
What actually is different:
* Homebase!Earth goes from very present-day London to Quaint English Village(tm) of mildly indeterminate period. Intentional result prediction: new dating controversy for grebt fan trolling lulz. Unintentional result prediction: not gonna be a step forward with regard to race/class/gender complexities ahaha. Token quirky residents to come... In fact Amy rather strongly comes across as the village token manic pixie dream girl. The manic pixie dream girl as Wendy Darling. Oh god I have made this sound terrible. But it is early days and I simply have no idea how her arc will play out. I don't imagine we've found out all there is to know about her.
* Youth or not, Matt Smith has a root - in the musical sense, a basse fondamentale - of authority that Tennant just didn't (not to get into everything Tennant brought to the role that was original to him). Which could work if they actually intend to go for an offbeat/offbeat Team TARDIS, like....... Four/Leela? I wrote "crazy/crazy" but that's not the right word for either Four or Leela. Basically what I mean is that the Doctor is not supposed to be the Voice of Sanity but then you get a companion who needs the brakes put on. It can't just be zaniness across the board, you've got to anchor it or it'll get old reaaaaally quick.
* Speaking of Wendy Darling.
I once compared Ten/Rose to vampire stories - that is, what's always interested me about vampire stories is the consequences-of-immortality aspect, rather than the blood-drinking (real sex for transgressive thrillz pls, metaphors are naff). But Davies's show was always anchored firmly in an adult (sometimes YA, but adult) perspective; any hint of child's-eye was a meta nod to "behind the sofa". What gives Moffat's S05E01 its "for kids" feel is the way it sets childhood up against adulthood, which is a given for kids and much less so for adults. Sororial unit thought it was too heavy-handed. I thought of reading Peter Pan as a child and taking it at face value, then rereading it at 17 - close to Amy's age during the main part of the story - and bawling. Now I am "over the hump" so to speak and it doesn't make me want to cry anymore, although I still love it as a powerful piece of literature and tangle of OMG BARRIE U HAZ ISSUES. But if Moffat intends to run with this as his emotional thesis re: the Doctor... It's as novel as Davies' Lonely God business, you don't see it anywhere in the old series. For good reason. Amelia would have made a lovely companion, but I wonder that Moffat has the steel balls to posit the idea to kids of running off with disheveled men who appear at the bottom of their gardens in the middle of the night. XD;;;
The really off thing, I mean actually unheimlich, about Peter Pan is that he's just a kid. Who will steal your kids from their cradles. The beginning of the book is a horror movie setup told from the mother's perspective. But the Doctor is a grownup. The proof being Amy's sexy nylons (AND WEDDING DRESS) don't disqualify her from Team Tardis a la Susan Pevensie or Wendy Darling -- look on the bright side! The Doctor is worse than everyone's aunt, but he is not worse than C.S. Lewis. (Amens from the congregation.) Nota bene? Neither Susan nor Wendy waits forever, and that was the whole point.
(A word on Susan Pevensie. That last bit was a cheap shot: I don't believe Lewis's message was as sexist as it's made out to be, because I remember very clearly how I received it at the time, as a preteen. What came through loud and clear to me was that Susan had made a choice, and - I want to emphasize - her choice. She chose the conventional adult world with its attendant joys and well-delineated possibilities, and yes that includes conventional expressions of feminine sexuality and so on, but that's just the shorthand. The well-trodden path. As a result she didn't go by the path less travelled by, which in Lewis is a not-necessarily-useful conflation of childhood with imagination that sets itself against the real world - which means anything from folie à plusieurs to religious calling and back, and Art too... Susan's fate is only Bad End if you buy that death-apotheosis is the only Good End, and that there is no value to the life she will undoubtedly continue to live. I certainly didn't buy that at the end of the Narnia books, and IMO Lewis was too smart a guy to sell it. But it was very powerful to me, this idea that you could and had to make a choice, between Book World and Real World if you will. To the left, one can tell kids that they don't have to choose, that they can have all the trappings of a conventional life lived and successfully answer whatever higher calling it is they hear, but to me that's a well-meant disservice because chances are one can't. Not enough time in the world. I make versions of that choice every day. If you're reading this, you probably do the same.)
tl;dr regarding the actual Eleventh Doctor![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
incandescens says Tom Baker, I think she's on the money (I always think incandescens is on the money XD - I still remember what she said about Tennant coming in, from when she said it, even though I had zero context for it at the time). I had the sudden realization one day that the Fourth Doctor doesn't dig Earth girls, and that this really says something huge about his character even though I can't pin down the terms exactly. But the Third Doctor was massively into Earth girls, just like the Tenth. Soooo.
Mmmmnnn you know what I thought it would be more different. I always assumed that triumphalist note was uniquely Davies but apparently not? Meanwhile you get a sort of Moffat trope best-of, and by best-of I mean "something new next time pls". But in the excitement I'd forgotten that the season premieres aren't ever the best episodes. XD;
What actually is different:
* Homebase!Earth goes from very present-day London to Quaint English Village(tm) of mildly indeterminate period. Intentional result prediction: new dating controversy for grebt fan trolling lulz. Unintentional result prediction: not gonna be a step forward with regard to race/class/gender complexities ahaha. Token quirky residents to come... In fact Amy rather strongly comes across as the village token manic pixie dream girl. The manic pixie dream girl as Wendy Darling. Oh god I have made this sound terrible. But it is early days and I simply have no idea how her arc will play out. I don't imagine we've found out all there is to know about her.
* Youth or not, Matt Smith has a root - in the musical sense, a basse fondamentale - of authority that Tennant just didn't (not to get into everything Tennant brought to the role that was original to him). Which could work if they actually intend to go for an offbeat/offbeat Team TARDIS, like....... Four/Leela? I wrote "crazy/crazy" but that's not the right word for either Four or Leela. Basically what I mean is that the Doctor is not supposed to be the Voice of Sanity but then you get a companion who needs the brakes put on. It can't just be zaniness across the board, you've got to anchor it or it'll get old reaaaaally quick.
* Speaking of Wendy Darling.
I once compared Ten/Rose to vampire stories - that is, what's always interested me about vampire stories is the consequences-of-immortality aspect, rather than the blood-drinking (real sex for transgressive thrillz pls, metaphors are naff). But Davies's show was always anchored firmly in an adult (sometimes YA, but adult) perspective; any hint of child's-eye was a meta nod to "behind the sofa". What gives Moffat's S05E01 its "for kids" feel is the way it sets childhood up against adulthood, which is a given for kids and much less so for adults. Sororial unit thought it was too heavy-handed. I thought of reading Peter Pan as a child and taking it at face value, then rereading it at 17 - close to Amy's age during the main part of the story - and bawling. Now I am "over the hump" so to speak and it doesn't make me want to cry anymore, although I still love it as a powerful piece of literature and tangle of OMG BARRIE U HAZ ISSUES. But if Moffat intends to run with this as his emotional thesis re: the Doctor... It's as novel as Davies' Lonely God business, you don't see it anywhere in the old series. For good reason. Amelia would have made a lovely companion, but I wonder that Moffat has the steel balls to posit the idea to kids of running off with disheveled men who appear at the bottom of their gardens in the middle of the night. XD;;;
The really off thing, I mean actually unheimlich, about Peter Pan is that he's just a kid. Who will steal your kids from their cradles. The beginning of the book is a horror movie setup told from the mother's perspective. But the Doctor is a grownup. The proof being Amy's sexy nylons (AND WEDDING DRESS) don't disqualify her from Team Tardis a la Susan Pevensie or Wendy Darling -- look on the bright side! The Doctor is worse than everyone's aunt, but he is not worse than C.S. Lewis. (Amens from the congregation.) Nota bene? Neither Susan nor Wendy waits forever, and that was the whole point.
(A word on Susan Pevensie. That last bit was a cheap shot: I don't believe Lewis's message was as sexist as it's made out to be, because I remember very clearly how I received it at the time, as a preteen. What came through loud and clear to me was that Susan had made a choice, and - I want to emphasize - her choice. She chose the conventional adult world with its attendant joys and well-delineated possibilities, and yes that includes conventional expressions of feminine sexuality and so on, but that's just the shorthand. The well-trodden path. As a result she didn't go by the path less travelled by, which in Lewis is a not-necessarily-useful conflation of childhood with imagination that sets itself against the real world - which means anything from folie à plusieurs to religious calling and back, and Art too... Susan's fate is only Bad End if you buy that death-apotheosis is the only Good End, and that there is no value to the life she will undoubtedly continue to live. I certainly didn't buy that at the end of the Narnia books, and IMO Lewis was too smart a guy to sell it. But it was very powerful to me, this idea that you could and had to make a choice, between Book World and Real World if you will. To the left, one can tell kids that they don't have to choose, that they can have all the trappings of a conventional life lived and successfully answer whatever higher calling it is they hear, but to me that's a well-meant disservice because chances are one can't. Not enough time in the world. I make versions of that choice every day. If you're reading this, you probably do the same.)
tl;dr regarding the actual Eleventh Doctor
incandescens says Tom Baker, I think she's on the money (I always think incandescens is on the money XD - I still remember what she said about Tennant coming in, from when she said it, even though I had zero context for it at the time). I had the sudden realization one day that the Fourth Doctor doesn't dig Earth girls, and that this really says something huge about his character even though I can't pin down the terms exactly. But the Third Doctor was massively into Earth girls, just like the Tenth. Soooo.
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uniformed spoutingmeta-commentary. re: Baker/Leela I wouldn't characterize as crazy/crazy. IIRC from the commentary track of Talons of Weng Chiang it was supposed to be a master/student dynamic ala My Fair Lady. Which frighteningly meant that Baker had to be portraying the sensible calm member of the team in the face of Leela's knee jerk violent default reaction.You're right on the money about Fourth Doctor not digging Earth girls. Note his reaction to the Countess in City of Death "I suppose you must be beautiful" (or something like that). Baker always tried to play the Doctor as a genuine alien, trying not react in a human manner to anything or anyone. Which is one reason why Liz Sladen's Sarah Jane was the perfect foil for him, being perhaps one of the most down to earth companions without coming across as a stick-in-the-mud like Donna sometimes was.
You're also not the first person I've come across today comparing Smith to Baker's Doctor, which now has me extremely interested in catching this ep when it comes on BBC America in a few days.
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With the Third Doctor, I'm not sure if it was that he dug Earth girls, or that the role he liked playing happened to include enjoying having a cute female assistant. Because the role was important to the Third Doctor at first, what with being stuck on Earth and restricted to linear time and having to cope with Unit and the Brigadier and so on. The Fourth Doctor could skip off and do his own thing and didn't have to have acceptable human attitudes so much, but the Third Doctor had to at least act human in order to cope with his exile (or possibly to have it cope with him).
I will concede a high similarity between Third Doctor/Jo and Tenth Doctor/Rose links. :)
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I came to see emotional parallels between the Third Doctor era and the Ninth/Tenth era, eventually... had an entertaining 15min picturing how the Troughton->Pertwee regeneration storyline would've gone down with current internetz fandom. XD;; In the former humans are all he's got and he's stuck with us, in the latter... humans are all he's got and he's stuck with us, but in a different way. (Something here re: their respective attitudes toward the Master, too, when he shows up.) I think the role aspect is very much there, in that the Doctor defines the scope of these relationships right away - can be OTT chauvinist in a way that from present-day perspective almost reads as playacting the era - but the boundaries delineate spaces that are coloured in by a very human sort of honest affection. The Fourth Doctor inherits Sarah Jane from the Third, and they work well together, but IMO something goes missing in the transition rather than is gained.
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But to the Fourth Doctor, humans in general are far more interesting and alien. It's not so much a roleplaying holiday any more. It's an actual exploration. Sarah has to run to keep up.
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WHICH IT IS j/k obv I cannot hate plucky redhead but she's just so Fanboy Fantasy. As opposed to Mary Sue. Btw when the "French maid" line came up I thought of you.
Neither Susan nor Wendy waits forever, and that was the whole point.
One of the things that vexes me about Moffat's thesis is that he makes the Doctor into the guy who stands (female) you up--blithely, repeatedly--and if you do wait, as opposed to Living Yr Life which in Moffat terms usually means finding a(nother) man etc. you're pathetic, but when he does show up you're still supposed to forgive him and run off for a lark in time and space, never mind all those years you spent in therapy. I mean arguably it's a take on alienness, i.e. feeble human behavioral norms roll right off the Doctor's back, but coming from Moffat I just read the whole thing as gendered in a really aggravating way.
NOT TO MENTION it sticks in my craw that he's playing to kids one minute and teaching them that women's legs are there to be male-gazed at the next. I don't remember seeing that kind of wink-nudge camerawork ever in RTD's Who, "adult perspective" or no, even when people were getting nekkid. Call me a raging feminazi with no sense of humor--idk maybe there were shots like that of Peri's cleavage back in the day and I just never noticed them at age 10 (thing is, you-the-kid-viewer don't have to notice them for them to warp you, that's the problem). Then of course in the scene where Eleven is flinging his clothes off, the camera's not on him, it's on Amy's face.
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The thing about the French maid stuff - or heck, the bondage stuff - is that it transcends camerawork (although I may or may not be imagining some fetish-fuel panning shots of Kylie's boots).
Peri's cleavage may have transcended camerawork too.It is gendered in a really aggravating way! Girl in the Fireplace didn't bother me, but this one crossed the line. Actually what made Eleven remind me of Tom Baker was precisely the way he let that shiz roll off him... Not that he was blithe about it, or at least not more than he was in the old series, but that the encounter really seems to warp Amy's life massively, which is a new record WELL DONE DOCTOR. I'm reserving judgment simply because I have no idea how things will pan out. It would suck if it were just brushed under the carpet, obviously.
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Blithe was the wrong word--he's vaguely aware, in a Men Are From Gallifrey, Women Are From Earth cross-cultural sort of way, that he's committed a faux pas, but the best you'll get out of him is an "oops" and then it's on to the next shiny thing. Five dolla sez he never really gets taken to task for it, not like Ten did for dumping people.
BUT I can stop being Negative Nellie for 3 seconds to admit I liked the myth-arc (?) intro, with the ~misterius cracks~ in spacetime and all. That stuff is Moffat's forte.
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However, I also worry.
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Which still leaves Manic Pixie Dream Girl and wedding-as-obligatory-rite-of-passage-into-adulthood for the HET AGENDA, but the former is tolerable if you assume Moff is commenting that the Doctor merely = the male version thereof, and the latter is... well, symbolically resonant. At least.
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Moffat does like the kids, though - Blink is the only one of his eps that a child didn't play a major role - and yeah, watching it as a kids' show, I wonder if he'll reach kids even more. (There's a major part of me that's sad I'm watching it now, because I think the show would've meant even more to me as a wee thing.)
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I think