dinosaurs on a spaaaaaaaaaaaaaceship
Sep. 9th, 2012 04:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kasihyaHERE BE SPOILERS
MY SHOWWWWWWWWWWWWW
THIS is why I watch Doctor Who, for episodes like this. Oh my god, it was cracky as all getout, but whereas Asylum sounded awesome and ended up terrible, this episode looked to be gimmicky and filler-y and it was instead full of the most epic, glorious cheeseand also some parts that were genuinely great! And Amy and Rory got, like, characterization of the kind that I’m only used to seeing in fanfic, and I have many more feelings that are mostly about AMY THE TIME TRAVELING EXPERT and RORY THE NURSE.
Not that there weren’t flaws, obviously. Much of the external driving plot was fuzzy and badly explained in ways that I don’t think would have been that difficult to fix; also the arc-related scene felt shoehorned in, and I feel like it could have been inserted in small pieces throughout the episode, with the bulk of the conversation taking place when it did, and it would have made more sense.
But I am so fucking thrilled with the way that the Pond family members were handled that I’m willing to not care so much about thatalso because they were confusing plot points instead of gigantic canon-erasing plot holes.
Okay, so let's just assume that if I don't mention something in my list of problems with the episode, then I really liked it.
1. Nefertiti and Rupert Graves at the end ... what? I mean, what that did not make sense. There was no sexual tension between them, there was just tension that I was supposed to take as sexual and it wasn't. That was my massive, irreconcilable issue with this episode. They set up these two potentially really cool background characters, but didn't explain why the Doctor knew them, didn't really give them a purpose besides being Amy's companions, and then shipped them off together at the end without sufficient character change.
2. I felt much the same about Rory's dad -- I was supposed to care about him more than I actually did. I saw someone on Tumblr griping about how the whole genetics thing with Brian and Rory made no sense whatsoever, but I liked it. Perhaps this is because it's the sort of silly, semi-contrived leap that I've come to enjoy ... it's also one of those things that makes more sense when you let it sink in, and remember that the Silurians (that we've seen in NuWho, anyway, I haven't seen the classic ones) are all clones, so that sort of link would be a lot more likely for them. Is it still contrived? Yes. But it's not so far out of the realm of plausibility as it would seem at first.
3. The genocide thing was jarring after Asylum of the Daleks, but honestly, the Doctor's interactions with the Daleks in Asylum were so OOC that I'm far more inclined to throw that episode out entirely, and see that as the aberration, than to complain about this one. The Doctor's fury here over Filch's treatment of the Silurians rang more true to me than did his complete lack of thought with regards to the "crazy" Daleks. I'm also going to go with that explanation with regards to Amy and Rory's relationship, and the way that it's back without a blip on the radar this episode. I hope it stays that way, honestly, and that I can just let Asylum sink to the back until it slowly falls out of canon forever and ever.
4. Speaking of "crazy" Daleks, I read a really interesting point (also on Tumblr, while sorting through the moff tag): when Amy starts to convert in that episode, she sees the Daleks as humans; what if the insane Daleks are the ones who see themselves as human, too, like Oswin? It would make a lot of sense that the Daleks would regard anyone who thought of themselves as human to be insane and dangerous; and how they got that way could be potentially really interesting. Alas, if only that wasn't another massive plot hole. The more I think about it, the more I realize that that wasn't so much a Swiss cheese of plot holes as it was a fucking spiderweb.
5. Oh, other thing I didn't like! If it was so easy for the Doctor to disable the nannybots, why didn't he just do that in the first place?
6. Final thing! The Doctor's SRS conversation with Amy felt shoehorned and exposition-y for something that I should have seen more of in her life, rather than having to learn about it via "As You Know, Bob" conversation. I honestly forgot about it because it was so out of place and unimportant.
Anyway, I have homework to do, and possibly fanfic of the ballerina Dalek to write. Onwards to the starry-eyed mooning over someone, finally, remembering that Rory is a nurse, and that Amy is a history geek who has spent years of her life traveling with the Doctor, so of course she would know how to handle being trapped on a mysteriously abandoned alien spaceship! It's one of those things that at first it seemed slightly OOC, until it occurred to me that it's just that we've never been allowed to see her being competent in action before; she's usually the damsel, and that this is probably the sort of development she should have been getting gradually all along.
I know there's the whole twitter debacle with Moffat that happened between 2:00am and 10:00am today, but I have no idea what happened or who did it or why and I can't find out so I'm just going to keep well out of it. Regardless of what he's like as a person, he's an asshole writer with a limited view of how to write female characters; and regardless of what he's like as a writer, he's still a human being who's trying to do his job the best he can, I'm sure.
MY SHOWWWWWWWWWWWWW
THIS is why I watch Doctor Who, for episodes like this. Oh my god, it was cracky as all getout, but whereas Asylum sounded awesome and ended up terrible, this episode looked to be gimmicky and filler-y and it was instead full of the most epic, glorious cheeseand also some parts that were genuinely great! And Amy and Rory got, like, characterization of the kind that I’m only used to seeing in fanfic, and I have many more feelings that are mostly about AMY THE TIME TRAVELING EXPERT and RORY THE NURSE.
Not that there weren’t flaws, obviously. Much of the external driving plot was fuzzy and badly explained in ways that I don’t think would have been that difficult to fix; also the arc-related scene felt shoehorned in, and I feel like it could have been inserted in small pieces throughout the episode, with the bulk of the conversation taking place when it did, and it would have made more sense.
But I am so fucking thrilled with the way that the Pond family members were handled that I’m willing to not care so much about that
Okay, so let's just assume that if I don't mention something in my list of problems with the episode, then I really liked it.
1. Nefertiti and Rupert Graves at the end ... what? I mean, what that did not make sense. There was no sexual tension between them, there was just tension that I was supposed to take as sexual and it wasn't. That was my massive, irreconcilable issue with this episode. They set up these two potentially really cool background characters, but didn't explain why the Doctor knew them, didn't really give them a purpose besides being Amy's companions, and then shipped them off together at the end without sufficient character change.
2. I felt much the same about Rory's dad -- I was supposed to care about him more than I actually did. I saw someone on Tumblr griping about how the whole genetics thing with Brian and Rory made no sense whatsoever, but I liked it. Perhaps this is because it's the sort of silly, semi-contrived leap that I've come to enjoy ... it's also one of those things that makes more sense when you let it sink in, and remember that the Silurians (that we've seen in NuWho, anyway, I haven't seen the classic ones) are all clones, so that sort of link would be a lot more likely for them. Is it still contrived? Yes. But it's not so far out of the realm of plausibility as it would seem at first.
3. The genocide thing was jarring after Asylum of the Daleks, but honestly, the Doctor's interactions with the Daleks in Asylum were so OOC that I'm far more inclined to throw that episode out entirely, and see that as the aberration, than to complain about this one. The Doctor's fury here over Filch's treatment of the Silurians rang more true to me than did his complete lack of thought with regards to the "crazy" Daleks. I'm also going to go with that explanation with regards to Amy and Rory's relationship, and the way that it's back without a blip on the radar this episode. I hope it stays that way, honestly, and that I can just let Asylum sink to the back until it slowly falls out of canon forever and ever.
4. Speaking of "crazy" Daleks, I read a really interesting point (also on Tumblr, while sorting through the moff tag): when Amy starts to convert in that episode, she sees the Daleks as humans; what if the insane Daleks are the ones who see themselves as human, too, like Oswin? It would make a lot of sense that the Daleks would regard anyone who thought of themselves as human to be insane and dangerous; and how they got that way could be potentially really interesting. Alas, if only that wasn't another massive plot hole. The more I think about it, the more I realize that that wasn't so much a Swiss cheese of plot holes as it was a fucking spiderweb.
5. Oh, other thing I didn't like! If it was so easy for the Doctor to disable the nannybots, why didn't he just do that in the first place?
6. Final thing! The Doctor's SRS conversation with Amy felt shoehorned and exposition-y for something that I should have seen more of in her life, rather than having to learn about it via "As You Know, Bob" conversation. I honestly forgot about it because it was so out of place and unimportant.
Anyway, I have homework to do, and possibly fanfic of the ballerina Dalek to write. Onwards to the starry-eyed mooning over someone, finally, remembering that Rory is a nurse, and that Amy is a history geek who has spent years of her life traveling with the Doctor, so of course she would know how to handle being trapped on a mysteriously abandoned alien spaceship! It's one of those things that at first it seemed slightly OOC, until it occurred to me that it's just that we've never been allowed to see her being competent in action before; she's usually the damsel, and that this is probably the sort of development she should have been getting gradually all along.
I know there's the whole twitter debacle with Moffat that happened between 2:00am and 10:00am today, but I have no idea what happened or who did it or why and I can't find out so I'm just going to keep well out of it. Regardless of what he's like as a person, he's an asshole writer with a limited view of how to write female characters; and regardless of what he's like as a writer, he's still a human being who's trying to do his job the best he can, I'm sure.
