Doctor Who S06E08 Let's Kill Hitler

[petronia]

Thanks to epic D&D/Warhammer game + potluck + live photoblog party, I actually managed to watch the new Doctor Who ep on the day of! This never happens.

Sadly I only gave it a 7 in the diggerdydum poll, considering dropping that as annoying aspect is so annoying.

What I posted on diggerdydum:

It doesn't need to whizz by so fast that Amy (in particular) never gets to react to things LIKE A NORMAL PERSON. Having a baby without knowing beforehand you're pregnant, then having the baby kidnapped is a big deal. Learning that your best friend has been lying to you for the entire time is a big deal. Meeting the grownup version of your child is a big deal. There are more feelings to be had there than "initial discombobulation". That's without getting into River's end of it.

The impact of timey-wimeyness on the Doctor-River relationship is well handled, because it's the thesis of how they relate. River does a great newborn, callow version of herself. But actors can only do so much if they're literally not given anything to work from. The emotional core of the S6 story - the plot, as written - should really be the Amy-River relationship, but I can't care about it because Moffat doesn't seem to think it needs to exist. Instead I gather I'm supposed to be worried about the Doctor almost sort of dying for like the third episode in a row or whatever. Heck, if he needs to feel guilty, he can feel guilty about the whole Melody Pond trained assassin bizns effectively screwing up Amy's life WAY more than him visiting her once as a pre-teen.

What I'm thinking about here is Douglas Adams, of all things - the Trillian-Random relationship in HHGTTG. Which is not precisely suffused with positive feeling, but that's the whole point, isn't it? Both Trillian and Random are messed up, they would have to be, because humans aren't designed to live their emotional lives in non-chronological-matchup order. NuWho never really took the plot there; now it has, but it handwaves the character effect it ought to have.

I do appreciate Rory getting his Captain America on, though. And the robot piloted by teeny-tiny people is actually really kind of neat.

This I have to say, I'm sure complaining about the Doctor Who is in the long run making me a better writer. XD; Just being able to identify what the problem is, and more to the point, how it should have been fixed.

Comments

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I was very good and left out the "...because then this may actually PASS BECHDEL and we can't have that" clause, but feel free if you were going to comment with that anyway.

[kickthebeat.livejournal.com]

this is exactly what bothers me about it: Amy and Rory had a baby and they want to watch her grow up, even a little bit, which is a perfectly awesome normal thing to want! and the Doctor's like, WELL, THERE'S NOTHING WE CAN DO NOW, and we're supposed to think that's ... okay? and that Amy would be okay with that? I refuse to accept that, but I'm also willing to bet a fiver we really won't revisit that idea this season and man, that pisses me off.

[incandescens]

I am hoping that the fact that there is no Amy-River (or Rory-River) interaction and the Ponds have had their child stolen from them only to meet her as a total adult comes up, and that the Doctor's whole shrug of "timey-wimey stuff, it happens" is treated as the issue that it is.

(Granted it's still better than RTD's treatment of mother-daughter relationships -- ie, that the mother is a nagging harpy and the Doctor, or an elder male relative, is the Voice of True Understanding and will swoop out of nowhere to free them. But not by much.)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I come from a family where mothers do indeed nag, so ummm to me those actually feel within the realm of realistic possibility. XD; Whereas what has been happening in S6 does not. Not to mention, like them or dislike them, Jackie and whatever-Donna's-mom's-name-was (Sylvia?) seemed like real, rounded people.

If Moffat did not want to write mother-daughter relationships like RTD's, all he had to do was... write one that was not like RTD's. After all Amy and River are extremely different people. But I get the feeling "mother-daughter" is a type of relationship that simply does not exist to him (for all I know, he has no sisters and no daughters himself, so...).

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Actually, I don't find Jackie remotely a nagging harpy! To me, she and Rose are great friends!

[incandescens]

Yes! That was how I saw it! (Not to mention the fact that Rose is going to grow up to be like Jackie.)

But throughout the story, I had the impression that RTD did see Jackie that way. Even if I didn't.

[incandescens]

And with the story now laid out as it is, I don't see how Amy and River can now ever have a mother-daughter relationship. If River goes straight into brainwashing and then into life as Mel and from there to being River, what happens to Amy's daughter? As things stand, it's very much adult-to-adult, with River being the older of the two in most of their interactions.

(Unless there is going to be timey wimey rewriting at the end of the season. If so, sigh.)

It does feel as though a big chunk of potential has just simply been missed. Amy's daughter has been dropped into a hole in space and time and is gone. If Moffat had wanted to tell a story about Amy's daughter, then he shouldn't be writing one which seems to be about "Amy's unconnected tissue sample". (And Rory, too.)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Interesting - I didn't see it that way at all. I thought that Jackie was meant to show the perfectly sensible negative responses any remotely caring parent would have to the idea of their child disappearing out of the timeline and off the planet constantly, into dangerous situations. She's presented as kind of a tacky person, but well, that's who she is. She more or less comes around, anyway.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they really can't, not without rewriting the timeline again. But even if the story had acknowledged that fact and its repercussions, at least it would be something. I just don't want the glaring issue WHICH THE PLOT IS ABOUT to be treated like it didn't exist. :P

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Too much timey-wimeyness! I like some timey-wimey-ness, lud knows I'd hardly watch this show otherwise, but recently I just feel bored and jerked around.

[incandescens]

That too, I agree, but I constantly had the impression that the series was looking down on Jackie.

How dare she object to her daughter running off with the Doctor? How dare she have a life of her own (and a sex life) after Pete was dead? How dare she compare her own life and existence to the higher, more elevated, more noble and free and pure and shining way that Rose was living, where she was inspiring the Doctor and "making a difference"?

I know plenty of people like Jackie (or like Donna's mother, or Martha's mother). By the end of the Tenth Doctor, the series was getting on my nerves with the way that they all seemed to be portrayed. If it had just been one mother or even two mothers that were shown as antagonists, I could have accepted that. But three in a row?

[incandescens]

Agreed.

[ampersandals.livejournal.com]

My thoughts on the episode basically run around: NOT HELPING AMY'S CASE

Mels bothered me in the sense that I assumed the point of Amelia Pond was that she was all alone with a Doctor in her head. And anyway the ep left a gaping distance between me and the characters (Amy and River). I no longer know how the characters are supposed to feel/react, so it's really hard to connect, emotionally, and that bothers me. And at this point I'm no longer sure what season 6 is about. Like, I've always wondered what made Rory and Amy tick (as a couple), and yeah okay I enjoyed the little flashbacks, but somehow it just doesn't fit the narrative.

Also, all the timey-wimey stuff is, frankly, getting old and out-of-hand.

[flax.livejournal.com]

but recently I just feel bored and jerked around.

Augh, this. I'm still entertained as balls while I'm watching the episodes, but when they're over I seem to find myself going "WAT. :|" Moffat best have some damn consequences and stuff planned for his timey-wimey-ness in the rest of the season.