Who 6x11: Hunh. I - hunh.

[sapote]

Or, okay, fine, but I think we can agree that Amy and Eleven love each other like crazy, whatever else is said. I guess the Doctor is actually - learning? in response to the mistakes of Ten. This is one of those story arcs that is probably only called up by the era of DVDs, when we have all the previous evidence of what a character's gone through right in front of us and would grow frustrated if he didn't react to that entirely-visible past.

I do think the split season made me feel like this has kind of hurtled at us without a lot of build, which might explain why last week felt so crammed full of emotional exposition. (I also skipped the creepy dolls episode because I couldn't find anyone to watch it with me IRL, and Doctor Who Scary is quite scary enough for my tastes.) (Also perhaps I was bitter because last week killed my loop-in-the-timeline theory and that makes me super sad.)

I am, after thinking about it (and taking a gander at other reactions) particularly heartened by the idea that the Doctor is going to be totally capable of learning and growth and maybe closing out some of Ten's issues. Learning and moving on are good!

ETA: It occurs to me that I didn't say much about the other like forty minutes of the episode because I don't much like the horror-movie getting-picked-off-one-by-one thing. I liked Rita; everyone liked Rita. She was both cast and written to be super-likable. It was super-obvious she'd die from the first interaction. I'm a giant wuss when it comes to horror movie tropes, which means that I keep my disbelief firmly on the ground in self-defense. Unfortunately it means that I'm not particularly able to do things like, idk, believe that this time the one-off character who comes on much more likable than normal and doesn't get her own episode and has lots of be-a-companion foreshadowing won't die. But I liked her within the boundaries of her trope. I was honestly maybe sadder that whats-his-face seems to have eaten the goldfish? Because their doom was not obvious.

A lot of the time shows recycle character types, and if there were ever a Rita who got to be a companion I would be very very pleased.