jedi_of_urth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jedi_of_urth) wrote2012-07-13 12:19 am
jedi_of_urth) wrote2012-07-13 12:19 am
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100 Reviews: 20
So yeah, I decided I needed so really good Who to go with my mostly negative review earlier (also I slept really late today so I’m probably going to be up half the night).
Doctor Who: 1x08: Father’s Day
This episode is borderline so “great” it forgets to be any good (there’s some DW episodes like that, but it’s mostly a thing I dreading on Buffy where I actually don’t like a lot of the big show piece episodes. Basically I think The Body is brilliant, but I don’t actually like it at all and not just because it’s depressing but because I find the story...meh). But Father’s Day is in fact so great it’s great.
It’s just a brilliant character piece for Rose, the Doctor, and Pete, and to some extent Jackie even. The plot is just an excuse for great character moments for three different characters and their relationships, all of which punch you in the gut repeatedly. Maybe there could have been a little more between the Doctor and Pete, to round things out, but there didn’t actually need to be.
And this episode is better than any fixed point in time story for showing the power of any person or action to change the world. Which is what makes it so powerful. Also have I mentioned that I find fixed points in time to make no sense (at least the way they’re used)? WoM is powerful for different reasons, but it’s FD that really makes the point for who matters, because the point here is that everyone matters.
“The past is another country” the Doctor tells us, and this episode really has an otherworldly air to it. It’s very desolate, even before the Reapers show up, hazy (though not dark and gloomy), quiet, and it only gets quieter as it goes along, and just...a world out of time. There’s a very heavy atmosphere to everything, almost like a living flashback feeling, which really works to give it a sense of inevitability to the end. This has all already happened, the Doctor and Rose are just visiting a world they are out of step with. Any other place and they don’t have to step so carefully, the world is immersive and dynamic; this world is one they cannot touch.
Short version I love the atmosphere this episode has.
It’s also a little like stepping into a fairytale (an idea the episode carries deliberately) and finding out that it’s not one. The pretty lies that we tell ourselves and others (in this case about how great Pete was and would have been) are replaced with reality. That carries its own truths, both beautiful ones and hard ones.
Anyway, though RTD didn’t write this one it feels very him. Cornell is probably the writer on the show whose themes and character emphasis gel the most with RTD’s style. The phone bit about ‘street corner getting a taxi home’ is such an RTD idea of love and how life works and how important that kind of life is (and how the Doctor would envy it) that he’s literally done exactly that meeting scenario in his other work. It’s why I really wanted Cornell to take over the show when RTD left, I felt like there was hope that the things I love about RTD’s Who would survive because PC’s ideas gelled so well with it.
I could go on a tear of analyzing this episode and what it means for each of the big players in it, but really, just watch the episode I you need a reminder. This episode is just about perfection and it speaks for itself. It’s absolutely beautifully written, utterly heartbreaking and brilliantly done by everyone involved. Including whoever it was who thought of adding baby-Mickey into the story. He doesn’t actually do anything, but it really adds just that extra layer of perfection to it.
I may never be able to make up my mind if this or PotW is my favorite episode of s1 (they’re really different and hard to rank next to each other), there is not denying this episode is among the best the series has ever done. So great it *almost* isn’t anymore. It’s even made me write a shorter review than usual even with repeating myself.
Next time:
Probably back to TVD, unless I’m really in the mood for a DW two-parter
Got more suggestions?
Doctor Who: 1x08: Father’s Day
This episode is borderline so “great” it forgets to be any good (there’s some DW episodes like that, but it’s mostly a thing I dreading on Buffy where I actually don’t like a lot of the big show piece episodes. Basically I think The Body is brilliant, but I don’t actually like it at all and not just because it’s depressing but because I find the story...meh). But Father’s Day is in fact so great it’s great.
It’s just a brilliant character piece for Rose, the Doctor, and Pete, and to some extent Jackie even. The plot is just an excuse for great character moments for three different characters and their relationships, all of which punch you in the gut repeatedly. Maybe there could have been a little more between the Doctor and Pete, to round things out, but there didn’t actually need to be.
And this episode is better than any fixed point in time story for showing the power of any person or action to change the world. Which is what makes it so powerful. Also have I mentioned that I find fixed points in time to make no sense (at least the way they’re used)? WoM is powerful for different reasons, but it’s FD that really makes the point for who matters, because the point here is that everyone matters.
“The past is another country” the Doctor tells us, and this episode really has an otherworldly air to it. It’s very desolate, even before the Reapers show up, hazy (though not dark and gloomy), quiet, and it only gets quieter as it goes along, and just...a world out of time. There’s a very heavy atmosphere to everything, almost like a living flashback feeling, which really works to give it a sense of inevitability to the end. This has all already happened, the Doctor and Rose are just visiting a world they are out of step with. Any other place and they don’t have to step so carefully, the world is immersive and dynamic; this world is one they cannot touch.
Short version I love the atmosphere this episode has.
It’s also a little like stepping into a fairytale (an idea the episode carries deliberately) and finding out that it’s not one. The pretty lies that we tell ourselves and others (in this case about how great Pete was and would have been) are replaced with reality. That carries its own truths, both beautiful ones and hard ones.
Anyway, though RTD didn’t write this one it feels very him. Cornell is probably the writer on the show whose themes and character emphasis gel the most with RTD’s style. The phone bit about ‘street corner getting a taxi home’ is such an RTD idea of love and how life works and how important that kind of life is (and how the Doctor would envy it) that he’s literally done exactly that meeting scenario in his other work. It’s why I really wanted Cornell to take over the show when RTD left, I felt like there was hope that the things I love about RTD’s Who would survive because PC’s ideas gelled so well with it.
I could go on a tear of analyzing this episode and what it means for each of the big players in it, but really, just watch the episode I you need a reminder. This episode is just about perfection and it speaks for itself. It’s absolutely beautifully written, utterly heartbreaking and brilliantly done by everyone involved. Including whoever it was who thought of adding baby-Mickey into the story. He doesn’t actually do anything, but it really adds just that extra layer of perfection to it.
I may never be able to make up my mind if this or PotW is my favorite episode of s1 (they’re really different and hard to rank next to each other), there is not denying this episode is among the best the series has ever done. So great it *almost* isn’t anymore. It’s even made me write a shorter review than usual even with repeating myself.
Next time:
Probably back to TVD, unless I’m really in the mood for a DW two-parter
Got more suggestions?
no subject
I'm a little surprised this episode would be the one that would make someone a shipper if thy aren't already but, not a lot surprised. They are very well written and acted here for it to be appealing.
Oh yeah...birthday...