Am I having a midlife crisis?

[sovay]

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, 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.)

Comments

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Why do you have to talk like children? What is it that makes you ashamed of being a grown-up?

Yes, this is the thing that made it for me. I am forever saying that Tennant's and Smith's Doctors are too similar, and seeing them paired like this emphasised the likeness. Hurt's reaction to them picked out where my problem lies, and made an opportunity of it.

Not that I would expect Matt Smith's Doctor to be less whimsical, more adult, now that the paradox has been accomplished: but he doesn't have to, because there was that moment of Capaldi...

I see that Elizabeth I has now merged seamlessly with Miranda Richardson's Queenie. And that John Martin was struggling to reproduce the art of Gallifrey (this last does not surprise me).

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

This is one reason why i think and hope that Capaldi will bring more gravitas to the persona of the Doctor.

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

Someone on tumblr, which I ordinarily regard as like unto a wretched hive of scum and villainy, posted the insight that the next Doctor (Capaldi) being a physically older regeneration makes complete sense: The Doctor's forgiven himself. He doesn't have to run away from adulthood any more. He can grow up now.

[selidor]

I think my first reaction at the end was 'Thank goodness, an episode of Dr Who I can actually like in its entirety'. Thank you John Hurt.
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.

[gwynnega]

I suspected you would like it!

And yet he's not all grim, with his mordant exasperation and gradually, gloriously, his lightening sense of hope.

I was (very pleasantly) surprised by the humor of John Hurt's Doctor. I'm glad they wrote to that strength of Hurt's, as well as the gravitas.

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

Oh, John Hurt. Not enough of him, agreed. Part of me would have loved to see him carry on, post-War, with the Moment as companion, arch and askew; but I'm glad he got that regeneration. He went into it with joy, and no other Doctor ever got that.

The Curator moved me, too. I like to imagine him never wholly retiring, solving strange art crimes in his old age.

[irisbleufic.livejournal.com]

Nine's grief and intensity were all the more present for their absence.

(I miss him so, so much. He's my Doctor.)