DW 6x04 - sigh.

[sapote]

I have never read anything by Neil Gaiman that I didn't find pervasively gross, and I know that's partially on purpose - I don't care at all for grotesques, and that's his genre, and okay, fine, I don't have to like all the genres. I actually didn't hate what this did to DW canon as far as rearticulating and fleshing out the back story of how the Doctor and the TARDIS fell in love. ...I think that was the only thing I liked, though.


1) Idris died horribly and in a really cruelly-framed way so that we could have this comic romp, and it's completely free of any kind of palliation or mercy, which is one of those things that I avoid other genre shows for doing. The only resolution is that the entity that kills her also dies unhappily and in pain, which doesn't count in my book, and anyway no one gives a shit that she got murdered even then.

2) Then her body explodes, which is a nice moment for Rory to reference the season arc and that was actually a good moment of character-building except that NOT YOURS, PLOT. NO. That body damn belonged to someone. It wasn't the TARDIS's fault but honestly even one of those clichéd "sorry"'s would have been easier on me. They cared more about the freaking Ood, and they didn't care much about him.

3) I hated the whole thing with Rory and Amy in the corridors. Are they going to kill Rory every single episode till the end of time to torment Amy? SHE LIKES HIM NOT DEAD. WE GET IT. COME ON.

ETA: I thought of something that I liked! I liked that the TARDIS recognizes Rory's good looks, at least. I liked the character of the TARDIS in general; I just hated all the Gaimaning at the margins.

I think it's probably okay that I don't like it; I'm glad other people did, but man, not for me at all. Which is my feeling about Gaiman in general! ... Sorry, internet :( I keep trying with him. Please, please do not read this if someone complaining will harsh your squee. I love your squee, and want it to be happy.

Comments

[dolores_crane]

Oh, God, 3) SO MUCH. There wasn't a LINE in the WHOLE EPISODE that sounded like Amy and Rory, and that whole plot actually depended on them both being stupid and personalityless (why suggest that the entity should kill them slowly? Why not find anything out about the entity that's talking to them? Why 'run' FROM NOTHING when the entity has not actually threatened them or shown its power/abilities in any way? Why, after you have been separated once, continue RUNNING without holding hands/sticking physically together in some way? WHY SO STUPID AT EVERY TURN? And yeah, the eternal return of 'Rory waits for Amy, Amy would be sad if Rory would be dead' IS NOT AN ACCEPTABLE SUBSTITUTE FOR WRITING THEM IN-CHARACTER). And the fact that the whole plot/head-messing thign relied on an idea (eternal punishment) that Gaiman has been obsessively recycling since like THE SECOND EPISODE OF THE SANDMAN doesn't help. Ditto the 'cute mad girl', Y HALO THAR TORI AMOS/DELIRIUM/fuck off Gaiman.

Also, how rubbish are Time Lords if that planet has killed 'hundreds' of them? How does this fit in with the Time War?

Anyway, I was dreading it, and it actually ended up having some nice lines/moments in - I mostly liked the interaction between the Doctor and the Tardis, and like you I liked the backstory - so it was sort of a win for me, but OH GOD THEY GOT GAIMAN ON MY WHO.

[sapote]

::clings to your first paragraph:: I KNOW. Even at the beginning when they were Strong Woman-ing all over Amy it didn't sound anything like her (what is this about her being against the Doctor having feelings? That is strange) and they've done a lot of good character development with Rory but it's vital that they stick with it and not make him say random stupid things and then die. Also, when you're facing down a maniacal evil entity, it is not the time to be honest about how you feel about your childhood, it's the time to be even slightly clever please, or even just curious. And yes - the lack of handholding killed me. I know that it's a horror convention that the audience knows better than the characters that you don't split up, but it was kind of torment.

... I generally hate the Gaiman Wounded Waif, so that's between me and him, I guess.

I think I can fanwank how it fits in with the Time War to my satisfaction - my understanding is that the Time Lords got cauterized out of the main show universe, but if they weren't in any of the timelines that got broken and turned back in on themselves but were instead off using someone else's time, then those times might still have traces of Timelord in them. Also, I did like that it's now in the canon that regenerations are not fixed into one sex (or gender, given that we're not clear on Timelord reproduction). That is a tiny little start of the possibility of one day having a lady Doctor maybe. Like I said, I didn't hate what it did to canon. I just - yeah, it got Gaiman all over the place. I keep trying with Gaiman because so many people whose opinions I hold very highly like him, and no, I think I need to learn that he is not for me at all.

[dolores_crane]

I did like that it's now in the canon that regenerations are not fixed into one sex (or gender, given that we're not clear on Timelord reproduction)

Yes! I forgot that! I liked that too. Will we get a lady Doctor or a lady President of the US first, I wonder.

I keep trying with Gaiman because so many people whose opinions I hold very highly like him, and no, I think I need to learn that he is not for me at all.

I feel about Gaiman like some of my friends (and possibly Philip Pullman) feel about CS Lewis ('The Great Betrayer'). He was hugely, hugely important to me in my adolescence, and then practically overnight - it was the final story arc of the Sandman - I... kind of grew out of him? Or realized that he wasn't as good, as wise, as deep, as I'd thought, and because he'd been so much a part of my head, it felt like a betrayal, like I'd been tricked into going along with something that I didn't want to believe I'd ever believed in. And now I just have a disproportionate hatred of him when, you know, he's fine. He just winds me up.

[sapote]

... Lady president.

Whereas I am kind of Gaiman-bitter because I travel in circles IRL where EVERYONE LOVES NEIL GAIMAN - I also have good internet friends who love him, but it's nothing compared to offline - and I just keep trying, man, and no, I still don't like him. The whole way through Good Omens I wanted him to shut up and let Pratchett do the talking. I guess I also feel like he's trying to blow my mind, man, with how gritty and dark he is? And I can't stand that sort of thing in general; it's part of the reason why I consume a lot of media aimed at nerdy middle-schoolers :)

[jjhunter]

Dropping in from the Latest Page to thank you for sharing your thoughts--I loved the episode, but the Idris part was very disturbing, and her erasure from the narrative leaves a hole begging to be filled with fic.

[sapote]

Hey, thanks - I do hope there's some fic out there soon :) I do love it when the Who universe (or, I guess, cosmos in this case) gets bigger and leaves such room for our imaginations.

[jjhunter]

I've been doing some more reading on the subject, and just found out that there was apparently more about Idris in the original script; quoting from Neil Gaiman,

You know, in early drafts we learned a lot more about Idris, and she was imprisoned on the asteroid, and she didn’t become the TARDIS until about 20 minutes in. But it only got interesting once she became the TARDIS. So we moved that stuff up.

So much Auntie and Uncle etc backstory in my head and in previous scripts — and there was even a lot more that we shot. Adrian and Elizabeth were funny and creepy at the same time, and they had dialogue that indicated that normally the TARDISes when placed in human form say a few words then burn up and die: what our TARDIS did in Idris’s body was unheard of. But then, it was too long, so those scenes, along with many wonderful Uncle and Auntie lines, went away.

[sapote]

Hey, thank you for this link! This is really interesting, and explains a lot. There's so much that goes on that we don't see in how the episode arrives on the screen, and a lot of the time the answers to the "buh?" moments seem to be back in that history.