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You could take bottle tops off with these
Last night's dreams, including but not limited to: something about the ruins of high bridges and making love with the male-bodied version of someone I know as biologically female. Also they had small fanlike fins in the hollows of their hips, but that sort of thing is not uncommon in my dreams. I hope they don't mind.
I passed out before making any notes to myself on "Deep Breath," which![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
derspatchel and I finally got the chance to watch last night, long after my friendlist had exploded about it. Short course: I expected to like Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor and I did. His erratic scenes post-regeneration worked much better for me than Eleven's manic madcap antics and his later shyness felt genuine rather than sympathy-rigged, especially now that he has some sense of himself and his recent actions rather than hands he doesn't recognize and difficulty not flirting with tyrannosaurs. I'm not sure I'm a hugging person now . . . He's the first Doctor in a very long time who looks as though human is not his default setting; he has some birdlike movements, a springy, wary fierceness which every now and then becomes something as bizarrely normal and diffident as an offer of coffee and chips. I find myself thinking tiercel when I look at him. (Of course he's dangerous; when was the Doctor ever not?) I am just hoping that the question of why this face is not really being set up as a series mystery; it answers itself pretty quickly. Capaldi ranting about his eyebrows is delightful. They probably want to secede from my face and set up their own independent state of eyebrows!
I was less endeared by the meta-plot of the episode, which seemed to feel the audience needed to be talked into accepting Capaldi's Doctor as strongly as Clara with her imprinting on youthful Eleven, stressing continuity with his predecessor rather than offering the latest iteration on his own terms. I believe it's a valid issue for Clara, but personally I was looking forward to Twelve; I don't need to be argued out of my bias against wiry grey hair and cantankerous brows. (I did like the Doctor being puzzled by his own reflection, lined with experiences he didn't live through; hearing the words out of his own mouth a beat too late to look away. You probably can't even remember where you got that face from.) The phone call was really pushing it. I am also decidedly unsure about the random jags of slapstick and not just one, but three characters casually condemning Clara's personality flaws. I don't like her much as a character, but that has to do with how thinly she's written, not because I think she's an emotionally needy passive-aggressive egomaniac or any of the other labels the script suddenly felt the need to hang on her. It was like reverse fan service. "Nothing is more important than my egomania!" is a great line, but a cheap shot. If it was meant to build up to her moment of bravery among the clockworks—which was well done—I think it backfired.
All through the episode I thought the clockwork leader looked familiar; I should have recognized him as the deserter Jacob from A Field in England (2013). To be fair, he had a beard there. And part of his face wasn't a naked metal frame.
I am all for seeing more of Jenny and Vastra as a marriage. It feels a little like cheating that their first kiss onscreen (that I've seen, anyway) is a life-saving sharing of breath rather than a moment of passion or everyday affection, but maybe people don't ever just kiss on Doctor Who. Anyway, lesbian ninja lizard-human couples: rock on.
I'm not sure what it is with Moffat and theatrically flirtatious female antagonists. I hope Rob is right that she's the Rani, who has not yet appeared in New Who. Maybe the umbrella's because she watched a lot of The Prisoner the last time she was on Earth.
I was really sad about the dinosaur.
I passed out before making any notes to myself on "Deep Breath," which
derspatchel and I finally got the chance to watch last night, long after my friendlist had exploded about it. Short course: I expected to like Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor and I did. His erratic scenes post-regeneration worked much better for me than Eleven's manic madcap antics and his later shyness felt genuine rather than sympathy-rigged, especially now that he has some sense of himself and his recent actions rather than hands he doesn't recognize and difficulty not flirting with tyrannosaurs. I'm not sure I'm a hugging person now . . . He's the first Doctor in a very long time who looks as though human is not his default setting; he has some birdlike movements, a springy, wary fierceness which every now and then becomes something as bizarrely normal and diffident as an offer of coffee and chips. I find myself thinking tiercel when I look at him. (Of course he's dangerous; when was the Doctor ever not?) I am just hoping that the question of why this face is not really being set up as a series mystery; it answers itself pretty quickly. Capaldi ranting about his eyebrows is delightful. They probably want to secede from my face and set up their own independent state of eyebrows!I was less endeared by the meta-plot of the episode, which seemed to feel the audience needed to be talked into accepting Capaldi's Doctor as strongly as Clara with her imprinting on youthful Eleven, stressing continuity with his predecessor rather than offering the latest iteration on his own terms. I believe it's a valid issue for Clara, but personally I was looking forward to Twelve; I don't need to be argued out of my bias against wiry grey hair and cantankerous brows. (I did like the Doctor being puzzled by his own reflection, lined with experiences he didn't live through; hearing the words out of his own mouth a beat too late to look away. You probably can't even remember where you got that face from.) The phone call was really pushing it. I am also decidedly unsure about the random jags of slapstick and not just one, but three characters casually condemning Clara's personality flaws. I don't like her much as a character, but that has to do with how thinly she's written, not because I think she's an emotionally needy passive-aggressive egomaniac or any of the other labels the script suddenly felt the need to hang on her. It was like reverse fan service. "Nothing is more important than my egomania!" is a great line, but a cheap shot. If it was meant to build up to her moment of bravery among the clockworks—which was well done—I think it backfired.
All through the episode I thought the clockwork leader looked familiar; I should have recognized him as the deserter Jacob from A Field in England (2013). To be fair, he had a beard there. And part of his face wasn't a naked metal frame.
I am all for seeing more of Jenny and Vastra as a marriage. It feels a little like cheating that their first kiss onscreen (that I've seen, anyway) is a life-saving sharing of breath rather than a moment of passion or everyday affection, but maybe people don't ever just kiss on Doctor Who. Anyway, lesbian ninja lizard-human couples: rock on.
I'm not sure what it is with Moffat and theatrically flirtatious female antagonists. I hope Rob is right that she's the Rani, who has not yet appeared in New Who. Maybe the umbrella's because she watched a lot of The Prisoner the last time she was on Earth.
I was really sad about the dinosaur.
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lesbian ninja lizard-human couples: rock on.
Indeed.
I thought it was the Rani at the end, as well. I hope so! I also was sad about the dinosaur.
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Interesting. I missed almost all of the Tenth Doctor's run, so I didn't catch that.
Besides, Clara (or various iterations of Clara, I don't quite remember how this worked) has actually met and helped all the previous Doctors. Also, she met the Tenth Doctor and the John Hurt Doctor just a couple of episodes ago, so if any Companion should've been equipped to deal with the regeneration, it ought to have been her.
I also was sad about the dinosaur.
I hope there's some random subplot late in the series about preventing the dinosaur from ever getting dragged along to Victorian London in the first place. Not being able to save the first person in your new regeneration who needs your help has to rankle.
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If that makes any sense.
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I liked Eleven a lot in his early appearances—he was convincingly alien and I liked the mixed, mercurial age of his gawky body and his angle-boned face—but I think he grated on me over time. Too much of his character came to feel defined by impulsiveness and apparent surrealism: the mad man with a box. Twelve floundering irritably through nighttime London and the inside of his own head is not quirky; I'm not even sure how settled he is in himself by the end of the episode, although at least he's sorted his memory (and some basic concepts of socialization) out. I will stop talking until you've seen the episode.
I liked some of the twisty metaplots Moffat put together, but taken individually, many of the episodes felt too much like I was being told to think the Doctor was the awesomest thing ever, instead of being shown cool stories that left me thinking "you know, the Doctor is the awesomest thing ever."
If that makes any sense.
Absolutely. Hearing someone repeat a thing is not sufficient reason to feel it for yourself.
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The closest I came to liking him was, in a way, the moments when I didn't like him: on closer inspection, I realized that Eleven was by far the angriest of the new Doctors, the one who was most willing to yell at people and even let them die. (There was a moment in Eleven's last season where a villain got killed -- not through any fault of the Doctor's -- and I turned to my husband and said, "Nine would have been sad. Even though she deserved it.") It didn't make me like the character as a person, but it was the one place where I really felt like Eleven distinguished himself as something other than Ten 2.0.
Mind you, I should admit that my feelings are colored by Ten being my favorite of the new Doctors. (I don't know Classic Who pretty much at all.) I like Tennant, and more to the point, I like the kinds of stories they told with him, because they dug into some of the issues I really wanted to see someone explore with the Doctor, re: immortality (or what amounts to it) and what regeneration actually means to him, etc. It's like the fifth season of Highlander: somebody stepped back and took a look at the philosophical ramifications of the premise. So you get Ten saying that he's afraid to die and somebody else saying, well, you'll just do that regeneration thing, won't you? And Ten says, oh, sure -- but the person who walks away won't be him. It'll be somebody else, with his memories. A lot of people thought Ten was too angsty, but I like that particular flavor of angst.
Hearing someone repeat a thing is not sufficient reason to feel it for yourself.
Yep. And I'd have to go back and rewatch things to be certain, but: it feels to me like during Nine and Ten's runs, the audience's focus was meant to be on the Companion, and the Companion's focus was on the Doctor*. So we admired him because we empathized with this character who admired him. Whereas in Eleven, I feel like our focus was meant to be on the Doctor. Which just doesn't work as well.
*I have a recollection of the professor who taught my Hinduism class saying that in one of the standard iconographies of Krishna and Radha, where she's looking at him, the viewer is supposed to look at Radha, not Krishna. Because he's looking at you, and by looking at her you complete the circuit, so to speak. I don't know if I'm remembering that correctly, but even if I'm not, it's a good metaphor for how I think the Doctor works best: we look at the Companion who looks at him who looks at us.
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Which episode? "The Crimson Horror"?
Mind you, I should admit that my feelings are colored by Ten being my favorite of the new Doctors. (I don't know Classic Who pretty much at all.)
My first Doctor was the Fourth, so some part of me is always faintly disappointed when a new Doctor doesn't want a long stripy scarf after all. My first new Doctor was the Ninth; I missed most of Ten and a lot of the middle of Eleven; over the winter
So we admired him because we empathized with this character who admired him.
Hm. I don't think that's what decides me to like/admire/trust/sympathize with a character; I have a fine track record of enjoying characters who are kind of terrible at things. But I agree that—unless their unreliability is the point—we have to be able to believe the characters who like/admire/trust/sympathize with a central figure, otherwise it's just more empty insistence.
Whereas in Eleven, I feel like our focus was meant to be on the Doctor. Which just doesn't work as well.
We may be differing in our definitions of "focus." I felt Eleven's run suffered badly from the need for his Companions to be mysteries for him to solve, first Amy Pond, then Clara Oswald; I wanted more of the story to be about the Doctor and his travels across time and space, not about his efforts to unravel the riddle of the women in his life. (The whole name-of-the-Doctor mystery did not count.) I'd really like to know what Clara's like when she's not defined by her plot function: the "impossible girl," the girl born to save the Doctor. Maybe we'll finally get some of that this season. But I also feel like Eleven was shortchanged in needing to spend so much time trying to figure out what made Clara tick. The Doctor was looking at the Companions, so we looked at the Companions. The philosophical issues you talk about with Ten, the question of what immortality means when you still have to die and the person who comes back isn't you, I don't think Eleven ever had anything like that. Maybe by "The Day of the Doctor," when the War Doctor identifies him as a figure of escapism: the man who forgets. But that was very late in the game.
[edited] aaaaagh HTML
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Yes, I think that was the one.
Hm. I don't think that's what decides me to like/admire/trust/sympathize with a character; I have a fine track record of enjoying characters who are kind of terrible at things.
Oh, I don't think that has to be the structure. But -- and again, this is off the cuff; I'd have to go back and rewatch to see whether I agree with myself -- it feels to me like that's the structure this particular show was using. Perhaps this will be clearer in a moment:
We may be differing in our definitions of "focus."
I think "focus" probably wasn't the right word for me to choose. When I watched the first season of nuWho, I felt like Rose was the protagonist, the character I was meant to identify with, and the Doctor was the key component of the world she was exploring. To varying degrees, that seems to have remained true throughout Davies' run. When Moffat took over, though, it shifted: now it feels like the Doctor is the protagonist, and the world he's exploring happens to include his Companions. Clara in particular can't be the protagonist, because the dominant point of her (at least in her first season) is that she's a mystery: I can't really identify with her because I don't know who or what she is. I'm not following her journey as she discovers the truth of her own life; I'm following the Doctor as he discovers it. But the Doctor is a better character for me when he comes a bit second-hand, filtered through someone else's life.
That still doesn't quite encapsulate what I'm thinking, but it comes closer. I think I need a better word than "protagonist," but I don't know what it is.
(I also find myself wondering whether I'm right, and we had a sudden uptick in episodes titled "X of the Doctor" when Moffat took the helm. It feels symptomatic.)
The philosophical issues you talk about with Ten, the question of what immortality means when you still have to die and the person who comes back isn't you, I don't think Eleven ever had anything like that. Maybe by "The Day of the Doctor," when the War Doctor identifies him as a figure of escapism: the man who forgets. But that was very late in the game.
I haven't actually seen that one, though I want to. In general you're right: Eleven wasn't about those issues at all. And that's okay, because I like the idea of them using different regenerations to tell different kinds of stories; I don't need or want every incarnation to have the same issues. But it's why I particularly like Ten.
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Understood. I think that's an accurate description; we are rarely inside the Doctor's head enough to identify with him in the strict sense rather than enjoy him as the motive force of the story.
Clara in particular can't be the protagonist, because the dominant point of her (at least in her first season) is that she's a mystery: I can't really identify with her because I don't know who or what she is.
She's a collection of plot necessities. I am hoping Moffat lets her evolve into a person this season. He seems to be starting.
That still doesn't quite encapsulate what I'm thinking, but it comes closer. I think I need a better word than "protagonist," but I don't know what it is.
"Lens character" has always been very useful for me. The person through whom we see the story. I agree that "protagonist" isn't really it.
I haven't actually seen that one, though I want to.
Ninety percent of the plot: handwave handwave handwave. Emotional core: John Hurt as an incarnation of the Doctor created for one terrible purpose, dedicated to carrying it out although he desperately wishes he hadn't been born for its burden in the first place; he can see no way out of what he is. I put up with all the handwaving for that.
In general you're right: Eleven wasn't about those issues at all. And that's okay, because I like the idea of them using different regenerations to tell different kinds of stories; I don't need or want every incarnation to have the same issues. But it's why I particularly like Ten.
I don't mean that he needed to embody the same philosophical questions: I mean I'm not sure he had any philosophical questions until his run was nearly over. (If desired, some discussion here in comments to my post about "The Day of the Doctor.")
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In fairness, I should note that part of the reason the Rose approached worked well was because they were starting the series up again. For people like me, who had never watched Classic Who and had only the vaguest acquired-by-osmosis understanding of the story world, it helped a lot to have a clueless lens character (I like that term, thanks) we could follow in making those initial discoveries. Possibly Moffat thinks that got old after a while, and now audiences know enough that the Doctor can be our lens character. While that might be true in a strictly pragmatic sense (I don't really need the TARDIS and all the rest of it explained again), I think it fails in a character sense, because the Doctor is an alien. A thousand-year-old shapechanging alien who frequently pulls the solution to a plot problem out of his ear. He makes a bad lens character because his perspective is not and cannot be mine. I'm reminded of how Jack Sparrow was better as a loose cannon rolling around in the vicinity of some more straightforward characters, rather than the central agent they tried to make him into for the fourth movie; I'm also reminded of Dorothy Dunnett never once giving you Lymond's point of view in The Game of Kings. Certain characters work better when they're slightly off-center.
She's a collection of plot necessities. I am hoping Moffat lets her evolve into a person this season. He seems to be starting.
That's good. I think I even liked her as a collection of plot necessities better than what Amy and Rory turned into by the end of their bit, which was a pair of Doctor groupies who really only seemed to exist to marvel at his coolness.
I put up with all the handwaving for that.
I don't mind handwaving so long as it's entertaining, and is headed somewhere interesting. That sounds like it qualifies.
I don't mean that he needed to embody the same philosophical questions: I mean I'm not sure he had any philosophical questions until his run was nearly over. (If desired, some discussion here in comments to my post about "The Day of the Doctor.")
Ah, gotcha. I will avoid the link for now, because I suspect therein lie spoilers, but I agree with you for the most part. The closest they came to asking any interesting questions with Eleven before that ep was probably the part around Demon's Run, which may be in the stuff you missed; that's the bit that made me realize, whoa, this Doctor is a lot harder and colder than the previous two. Because really, when you get a character saying "the Doctor has a message for you" and then spaceships start exploding in the background, followed by the character saying "would you like me to repeat that?" . . . they tried at least a little to explore that, the notion of the Doctor losing his sense of compassion, but it never quite paid off for me.
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* Maybe the umbrella's because she watched a lot of The Prisoner the last time she was on Earth.*
Hee! I'd love it if that garden turned out to be in Portmeirion.
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That is a very nice way of describing him.
I wish we could have Vastra and Jenny as companions.
Yes! I understand Vastra might not want to leave her consulting practice for long, but that's the beauty of time travel, isn't it? I'm not as attached to Strax, I'm sorry; I like when he is apologetically failing not to plot against the Doctor (". . . and we will not melt him with acid"), but he is otherwise kind of one-note.
The Clara-bashing is tedious and I wish Moffat would step down, at least as showrunner.
Even if he just had someone to plot out the seasons for him and let him concentrate on the smaller scale. His one-off episodes are great: "Blink," "The Night of the Doctor." He writes very entertaining dialogue; his characters have some of the fastest double-talk since the age of screwball. It just doesn't all hang together on more than delivery. The Eleventh Doctor's last season drove me up a wall.
I'd love it if that garden turned out to be in Portmeirion.
Okay, even if it was just a filming in-joke, I'm hoping now.
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I was less interested in what comments everyone else made about Clara than about what Clara was able to do herself, and I was happy with that. Last season's Clara just never interested me very much.
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Peter Capaldi is himself a non-fan of the Doctor having romances, which I consider a point in his favor. I don't find emotional rapport creepy in itself, but I agree that I really don't want to see Capaldi romancing Coleman. Or anyone else, really. Non-romantic relationships are interesting, damn it. Give them some air time!
I was less interested in what comments everyone else made about Clara than about what Clara was able to do herself, and I was happy with that.
That's fair. I felt the script was really going out of its way to tear her down, including the comedy clock on the head with Strax's newspaper; it seemed unnecessary.
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I also felt like Moffat was trying really hard to make a deep point about how people view each other and how they view themselves but that in the end that entire line just fell flat. One could probably write a good paper on it, though.
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That feels like it should be true. And cheapened if she was only seeing them as former faces of Eleven, the Doctor she really cares for.
I was rather looking forward to something more along the lines of "I realize you are different now, let's figure out who that is together". If they wanted to break the fourth wall a little, a line like "You are the Doctor, but you are not my Doctor" might have gone over well.
Yes. Especially with Clara being so heavily positioned as an audience stand-in. It would have been a meta touch, but no worse than the Doctor's one, long look at the camera.
I also felt like Moffat was trying really hard to make a deep point about how people view each other and how they view themselves but that in the end that entire line just fell flat. One could probably write a good paper on it, though.
I would enjoy a season of newly regenerated Doctor Who where the series arc was the Doctor and his Companion coming to terms with the change in ways that were complicated and accepting (although I would probably enjoy it even more if the Doctor had, say, actually switched genders or ethnicities or something a Companion has not had to adapt to before). I'm guessing that's not what we're headed for, though.
I just wish the series knew how to take time. In the literal, prosaic sense of room to breathe. Just an episode of time travelers hanging out without a monster of the week or a mystery hanging over their heads. That would be great. These characters are interesting enough to sustain our attention without a jump scare before the commercials.
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Doubly sad that they fail to do this in an episode called "Deep Breath". They built more of Clara's character in a 30 second flashback and five lines of dialog than they did the entire last half season. I would welcome more time to see it fleshed out. And the Doctor's character is so important that it's worth spending an episode without a bad guy just exploring who he is going to be.
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So many of the previous season's episodes needed to be two-parters. Is that now prohibited by the BBC? I had no other explanation for why they kept hurtling through episodes at a faster rate than the plots could take. It was like watching a stage play where the actors are paralytically afraid of silence.
Doubly sad that they fail to do this in an episode called "Deep Breath".
EXTREMELY GOOD POINT.
They built more of Clara's character in a 30 second flashback and five lines of dialog than they did the entire last half season.
This is also true. And it was a very good character-building moment: a few more like it (and less of Strax's tricorder phrenology) and we might have an actual person, not just a dark-haired plot device. It was nice to see that she actually had some life that existed separately from the Doctor—she can draw on it now, but it had nothing to do with him to begin with.
And the Doctor's character is so important that it's worth spending an episode without a bad guy just exploring who he is going to be.
Yes. That. Seriously.
scarf, familiar face
I assume that his face looked familiar because the Doctor has seen it twice - Capaldi was in the episode about Pompeii, as well as playing a recurrent character in Torchwood (John Frobisher, a definite slimeball). Maybe it was a tease, and we'll never hear it mentioned again. I don't think I knew before that he has a choice about his regeneration face/body. Is that new, or have I been oblivious for decades? I'd hate to think that it's the Doctor's choice to always be a white guy.
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I did! Alas. I think everyone could use a long scarf sometimes.
I assume that his face looked familiar because the Doctor has seen it twice - Capaldi was in the episode about Pompeii, as well as playing a recurrent character in Torchwood (John Frobisher, a definite slimeball).
Hey! He's where I started noticing Capaldi!
Maybe it was a tease, and we'll never hear it mentioned again.
I'm really hoping. Yes, we the audience know the actor already appeared on the show; it doesn't need to be a brain-teaser for the characters. The Twelfth Doctor is not John Frobisher is not Lucius Caecilius Iucundus. All separate people in their world, unless we're going to start breaking the fourth wall after fifty years. Put down the lampshade, Steven Moffat. Or at least leave it on the lamp where it belongs.
I don't think I knew before that he has a choice about his regeneration face/body. Is that new, or have I been oblivious for decades? I'd hate to think that it's the Doctor's choice to always be a white guy.
To the best of my knowledge, conscious choice of regeneration has never been an option outside of "The Night of the Doctor," and there it was only by the intervention of the Sisterhood of Karn. "The Day of the Doctor" leaned heavily on the implication that the Doctor's feelings and emotions inform the regeneration process, even if he can't see it at the time—Ten and Eleven turned out as protractedly juvenile as they did in part because they were running from the guilt and grief of the Time War, from age and responsibility and the deeply buried ways they remember it all went wrong. (See comments in link to