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Am I having a midlife crisis?
There was indeed a pleasing amount of John Hurt in "The Day of the Doctor."
Briefly, because I have to be awake in a very few hours to meet with a jeweler— Yes,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
poliphilo, ashlyme, I loved him. Of course he regenerates immediately following the parting of the three Doctors: he was created to end the Time War and with that task accomplished, he can cease to be. He told the Moment that he had no desire to survive the destruction of Gallifrey, for which his punishment would have been to live; because he finds another way, crazy, timey-wimey, continuity-bending as it is, he is allowed to die. And he leaves the time anomaly understanding that he will retain no memory of the events contained within it, but because he regenerates when he does, he—the Warrior, the War Doctor, the secret who deserves the name after all—dies knowing what he tried to do; it's Eccleston's Nine who won't remember. There are ways in which this would have made a perfect Christmas episode. Tennant and Smith's Doctors have been running from their past, but Hurt's is the one confronted with his future, forced to assess whether he likes the pattern he's about to set in place: the man who regrets, the man who forgets . . . Why do you have to talk like children? What is it that makes you ashamed of being a grown-up? He's battle-wearied, self-sick, resourceful as a suicide; he remembers the name he cast off, knowing a doctor's business was to save, not sacrifice, the way fallen angels remember turning their backs on heaven. (Naturally he's all the more aghast at his future incarnations: if he last remembers being the Eighth Doctor who died trying to save even someone who despised him, or that master game-player the Seventh who talked the Daleks into self-destruction, then "Chinny" and "Sandshoes" must seem a very poor recompense for all the blood on his hands, all the endless, interleaving centuries of struggle. He was young on Karn, already shadowed. How long does it take for a Time Lord to grow old?) And yet he's not all grim, with his mordant exasperation and gradually, gloriously, his lightening sense of hope. He catches fire as brightly as his mercurial counterparts; he realizes and improvises as swiftly as they do. He is younger than they are, seeing no way out but the dreadful sacrifice he was born to make, and when shown the chance of a different future he fights for it, gladly, instead of merely against. He burns away into life-gold light, smiling. It could have been a golem story, too. I have my arguments with some of the plot, but John Hurt is not one of them. Nor that burning-eyed glimpse of Capaldi's Twelfth Thirteenth Doctor, split-second to set the record straight.
(I still wanted more.)
Briefly, because I have to be awake in a very few hours to meet with a jeweler— Yes,
poliphilo, ashlyme, I loved him. Of course he regenerates immediately following the parting of the three Doctors: he was created to end the Time War and with that task accomplished, he can cease to be. He told the Moment that he had no desire to survive the destruction of Gallifrey, for which his punishment would have been to live; because he finds another way, crazy, timey-wimey, continuity-bending as it is, he is allowed to die. And he leaves the time anomaly understanding that he will retain no memory of the events contained within it, but because he regenerates when he does, he—the Warrior, the War Doctor, the secret who deserves the name after all—dies knowing what he tried to do; it's Eccleston's Nine who won't remember. There are ways in which this would have made a perfect Christmas episode. Tennant and Smith's Doctors have been running from their past, but Hurt's is the one confronted with his future, forced to assess whether he likes the pattern he's about to set in place: the man who regrets, the man who forgets . . . Why do you have to talk like children? What is it that makes you ashamed of being a grown-up? He's battle-wearied, self-sick, resourceful as a suicide; he remembers the name he cast off, knowing a doctor's business was to save, not sacrifice, the way fallen angels remember turning their backs on heaven. (Naturally he's all the more aghast at his future incarnations: if he last remembers being the Eighth Doctor who died trying to save even someone who despised him, or that master game-player the Seventh who talked the Daleks into self-destruction, then "Chinny" and "Sandshoes" must seem a very poor recompense for all the blood on his hands, all the endless, interleaving centuries of struggle. He was young on Karn, already shadowed. How long does it take for a Time Lord to grow old?) And yet he's not all grim, with his mordant exasperation and gradually, gloriously, his lightening sense of hope. He catches fire as brightly as his mercurial counterparts; he realizes and improvises as swiftly as they do. He is younger than they are, seeing no way out but the dreadful sacrifice he was born to make, and when shown the chance of a different future he fights for it, gladly, instead of merely against. He burns away into life-gold light, smiling. It could have been a golem story, too. I have my arguments with some of the plot, but John Hurt is not one of them. Nor that burning-eyed glimpse of Capaldi's (I still wanted more.)
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Amen! I had, as I said, some arguments: I understand what the Zygon plot is doing there, but it feels very arbitrarily grafted except for the parallel of Kate's some-must-be-sacrificed-if-all-are-to-be-saved willingness to nuke London (and I can't decide about the resolution: I like the notion of manipulating both sides to the same perspective when rational argument fails, because it matches both the War Doctor's pessimism and the Tenth and Eleventh's more impatient, tricksterish shortcuts of accepted behavior, but I'm not sure how I feel about memory wipes as the solution for world peace), and Moffat has a tendency to overexplain at moments that should be numinous, as when it takes forever for Hurt's Doctor to realize that the blond-haired woman appearing behind closed doors is the Moment, or when Smith's Doctor rattles on about curators past the point where it's plain he's about to be confronted with the results of his wish. But it's the first full episode I've seen in seasons* that I haven't wanted to rewrite or significantly restructure. It's full of lovely things and painful things and a lot of it is clever, but very little of it is facile. I just liked it.
And Hurt is just that good. He stands there and he has already acted Tennant and Smith off the screen. He can do more breathing than any number of actors with gesticulating. Even the script notices!
* [edit] While looking for another post, I found my review of "Victory of the Daleks." I really liked Matt Smith's Doctor to begin with!
Now post-Christmas Capaldi's Doctor can stop treating his Companions as puzzles to solve in order to distract himself from what he himself is. I've the impression Moffat was writing himself into a corner and can now breath easily again. Questing for Gallifrey allows far more adventures across space and time.
On all fronts agreed.