100 Reviews: 17
Jul. 11th, 2012 12:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urthOkay, so I managed to work some Doctor Who in (it looks like I’m just getting a head start in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
dwrewatch).
Doctor Who: 1x06: Dalek
This episode has never been one of my favorites, and while there are some good reasons why that I’ll get to I think it’s sort of the same reason Gridlock doesn’t work for me. It’s trying to build a story around a metaphor. Now this is a lot better than Gridlock (let it never be said I think everything RTD writes is gold when that episode exists), but it still grates on me.
But let’s deal with things that aren’t related to that. Namely, the supporting cast is really broadly drawn and while there are flashes of character in them mostly they’re caricatures. Caricatures with mediocre to bad American accents. Even Adam, who should be more than that if he’s going to be even a short term companion is pretty devoid of character.
There’s a couple moments in this episode that are retroactively even more dramatic than they were at the time. Rose against the door that sealed her in with the Dalek, holy Doomsday flashbacks (em, flashforwards, whatever); and some parts of the Doctor/Rose/Dalek dynamic (that we’ll get back to in a sec) really resonates more with the Doctor post-Rose than it necessarily did with her around.
A huge point of this episode seems to be about reintroducing the Daleks as a villain for modern Who (I don’t think one could really argue with that aspect of it). While from what I’ve seen the Daleks in Classic Who went through several eras, sometimes ultimate unstoppable evil sometimes kind of cartoonish baddies, RTD needed the modern Daleks to be dramatic, threatening, and scary. And outside of a few stumbling bits he and his team succeeded.
However, I bring this up because I am unfortunately reminded that *after* RTD’s era we get Moff’s rainbow Daleks, that have the unfortunate problem of trying to keep the drama RTD wrapped around the Daleks but making them ineffectual and non-scary. Just thinking about the rainbow Daleks makes the scary Dalek moments matter even more, we must savor it while it lasts.
Basically my biggest problems AND favorite parts of the episode come from the Doctor/Rose/Dalek dynamic (except lady soldier, she’s kind of awesome even if she died).
This is really the first episode that deals with the Doctor as a character and not just his role in the story. Obviously there have been moments, but this episode was built to bring his character to the forefront. And on that level it...mostly works. It gives us info on the Time War and the Doctor’s role in it. It shows us how fragile his apparently adjusted persona is when confronted with certain things. It allows him to confront some of his inner and external demons. But there’s a few stumbling moments in even his characterization this episode, and since he’s the focus that’s not a great thing to happen.
Rose is written kind of...not out of character at all, but not entirely AS a character. She’s part concept, part generic companion, and part idealized goddess here and only then part Rose Tyler the character. Her scenes with Adam aren’t about Rose, I can’t even tell if she’s flirting with him because she likes him or if she’s trying to get information out of him. Her scenes with the Dalek are so wrapped up in metaphor land that you have to really look for the character bits. And that’s pretty much her role this episode.
The Dalek is an interesting concept. Taking a creature bred for war, hate, and destruction and forcing it to confront its own nature in the face of a changed universe. Where it struggles is when you go “hey that’s what the Doctor’s going through...kind of” and force parallels into their relationship. I’m not even saying it’s wrong to acknowledge that the parallels are there, I just feel like the episode went too far trying to push them.
The most interesting thing in this is the final scene with our three main players and the complicated power dynamics between them. While the Doctor and the Dalek understand each other, where they’re alike and where they’re different and, like the Time Lords and the Daleks, are on mostly equal footing with each other, both have really put Rose as their higher authority. The Doctor will listen when she calls him back from the edge; the Dalek needs her to order him to die (now that’s a bizarre power dynamic) because she made him change into something he cannot be.
And that’s where the metaphor ultimately fails for me. Because the Doctor can and does change in response to Rose. Both in the episode, before it, and certainly after it. She changes him into something not quite Time Lord, not quite human. And he’s at his best when he’s that man, it’s losing the ability to be that that destroys him. Of course that’s a couple seasons down the line, but even in the episode it’s clear that he’s changing into something better because of her.
A few last notes:
-I’ve always wanted to like the “What use are emotions if you cannot save the woman that you love” line a lot more than I do. Although it’s also one of those things that is more tragic when considered in a post-Rose era of his life, because I’m pretty sure he does feel that way at some points during that. Right now it’s just a little too soon.
-The funniest explanation I like to joke with that justifies that line is thinking about how much Doctor/Rose fanfic the Dalek somehow found when it downloaded “the internet.”
-You know, Van Statton’s collection is marginally less impressive once we get a few more years of repeated invasions/visitors to Earth in the DW-verse. Because it happens a lot over the next few years.
-I think I’ll talk more about Adam once I’ve watched TLG again, it’s been a while since I’m not fond of that ep either.
Next time:
Maybe DW, maybe TVD, maybe I’ll add something else in
But if you have ideas
dwrewatch).Doctor Who: 1x06: Dalek
This episode has never been one of my favorites, and while there are some good reasons why that I’ll get to I think it’s sort of the same reason Gridlock doesn’t work for me. It’s trying to build a story around a metaphor. Now this is a lot better than Gridlock (let it never be said I think everything RTD writes is gold when that episode exists), but it still grates on me.
But let’s deal with things that aren’t related to that. Namely, the supporting cast is really broadly drawn and while there are flashes of character in them mostly they’re caricatures. Caricatures with mediocre to bad American accents. Even Adam, who should be more than that if he’s going to be even a short term companion is pretty devoid of character.
There’s a couple moments in this episode that are retroactively even more dramatic than they were at the time. Rose against the door that sealed her in with the Dalek, holy Doomsday flashbacks (em, flashforwards, whatever); and some parts of the Doctor/Rose/Dalek dynamic (that we’ll get back to in a sec) really resonates more with the Doctor post-Rose than it necessarily did with her around.
A huge point of this episode seems to be about reintroducing the Daleks as a villain for modern Who (I don’t think one could really argue with that aspect of it). While from what I’ve seen the Daleks in Classic Who went through several eras, sometimes ultimate unstoppable evil sometimes kind of cartoonish baddies, RTD needed the modern Daleks to be dramatic, threatening, and scary. And outside of a few stumbling bits he and his team succeeded.
However, I bring this up because I am unfortunately reminded that *after* RTD’s era we get Moff’s rainbow Daleks, that have the unfortunate problem of trying to keep the drama RTD wrapped around the Daleks but making them ineffectual and non-scary. Just thinking about the rainbow Daleks makes the scary Dalek moments matter even more, we must savor it while it lasts.
Basically my biggest problems AND favorite parts of the episode come from the Doctor/Rose/Dalek dynamic (except lady soldier, she’s kind of awesome even if she died).
This is really the first episode that deals with the Doctor as a character and not just his role in the story. Obviously there have been moments, but this episode was built to bring his character to the forefront. And on that level it...mostly works. It gives us info on the Time War and the Doctor’s role in it. It shows us how fragile his apparently adjusted persona is when confronted with certain things. It allows him to confront some of his inner and external demons. But there’s a few stumbling moments in even his characterization this episode, and since he’s the focus that’s not a great thing to happen.
Rose is written kind of...not out of character at all, but not entirely AS a character. She’s part concept, part generic companion, and part idealized goddess here and only then part Rose Tyler the character. Her scenes with Adam aren’t about Rose, I can’t even tell if she’s flirting with him because she likes him or if she’s trying to get information out of him. Her scenes with the Dalek are so wrapped up in metaphor land that you have to really look for the character bits. And that’s pretty much her role this episode.
The Dalek is an interesting concept. Taking a creature bred for war, hate, and destruction and forcing it to confront its own nature in the face of a changed universe. Where it struggles is when you go “hey that’s what the Doctor’s going through...kind of” and force parallels into their relationship. I’m not even saying it’s wrong to acknowledge that the parallels are there, I just feel like the episode went too far trying to push them.
The most interesting thing in this is the final scene with our three main players and the complicated power dynamics between them. While the Doctor and the Dalek understand each other, where they’re alike and where they’re different and, like the Time Lords and the Daleks, are on mostly equal footing with each other, both have really put Rose as their higher authority. The Doctor will listen when she calls him back from the edge; the Dalek needs her to order him to die (now that’s a bizarre power dynamic) because she made him change into something he cannot be.
And that’s where the metaphor ultimately fails for me. Because the Doctor can and does change in response to Rose. Both in the episode, before it, and certainly after it. She changes him into something not quite Time Lord, not quite human. And he’s at his best when he’s that man, it’s losing the ability to be that that destroys him. Of course that’s a couple seasons down the line, but even in the episode it’s clear that he’s changing into something better because of her.
A few last notes:
-I’ve always wanted to like the “What use are emotions if you cannot save the woman that you love” line a lot more than I do. Although it’s also one of those things that is more tragic when considered in a post-Rose era of his life, because I’m pretty sure he does feel that way at some points during that. Right now it’s just a little too soon.
-The funniest explanation I like to joke with that justifies that line is thinking about how much Doctor/Rose fanfic the Dalek somehow found when it downloaded “the internet.”
-You know, Van Statton’s collection is marginally less impressive once we get a few more years of repeated invasions/visitors to Earth in the DW-verse. Because it happens a lot over the next few years.
-I think I’ll talk more about Adam once I’ve watched TLG again, it’s been a while since I’m not fond of that ep either.
Next time:
Maybe DW, maybe TVD, maybe I’ll add something else in
But if you have ideas
