"Utopia" reaction

[jedi_of_urth]

And on the 11th episode, RTD said unto us, let there be Jack.

And lo, it was good.

Be warned, most of my thoughts this episode revolve around Jack and Rose related angst, as cool as the return of the Master is, it’s got nothing on Jack’s.

Jack looks very pretty while unconscious. The Doctor looks quite pretty looking at unconscious pretty Jack. Even Martha looks kind of pretty right now and I normally wouldn’t notice her for anything, probably just reflected pretty glow this episode. I’ll try and refrain from over mentioning the pretty, but I had to lead off with it.

Ah, Jack thought Rose was dead, and it’s practically the first thing he brings up with the Doctor, he misses Rose (even after 140-ish years), but mostly I think it had more to do with concern for the Doctor at having lost Rose (well, I think this until later in the episode mind you). And hugging so reminiscent of “Rose is still alive” in ‘Bad Wolf’. “Good old Rose” indeed...oh Martha was being sarcastic, I wasn’t, Rose is still the center of the OT3.

1869? Really, 1869? And here I was just the other day thinking that ‘Unquiet Dead’ might have a lot to do with the eventual rescue of Rose. Okay, he never said Cardiff 1869 I don’t think, but I choose to think he slipped through at that point.

“Not if you’re blond.” Ha, Jack knows the Doctor would *never* have left Rose behind. Neither Martha’s “You just leave us behind” nor Jack’s blond comment are refuted, certainly neither get a ‘School Reunion’ moment out of it (“Not to you…you can spend your life with me,” Jack wouldn’t be surprised).

Why did the Doctor say he made Jack not shoot but didn’t say anything to the guards? It was a bit muttled-sounding. Ah but Jack missed the running and the adventure, and he hasn’t exactly been lacking it in his own life (by the way, no one mentioned Abadon or the massive death toll in Cardiff because of it, or Jack having killed it by letting it feed on his life energy, these seem like points that maybe should come up). I bet Rose misses it too.

I think at some point in here Jack refers to something as “Fantastic” which you know he did intentionally. Later in the episode Ten uses “Fantastic” too, I thought it was notable.

Humans, it’s always humans, I’m actually a little put off by the fact that no other races managed to survive. I’m starting to think RTD is a bit prejudiced against other races that he can’t invent any that are worth saving or capable of saving themselves or being saved or whatever. And the Doctor’s human happiness would fit better if it wasn’t for the last few episodes where it was pretty clear he wasn’t as “Yay humans” as before.

Hand in a jar!! Although, I went back and checked and the jar sure looks to still be there at the end of ‘End of Days.’ Maybe it’s just part of the equipment connected to it, but it makes Gwen’s reaction even more delayed than I thought since he managed to grab and pack the hand in a jar and Gwen didn’t wander out until the TARDIS was leaving.

Martha, he’s alien, you knew he had two hearts before you even knew his name, freaking out because he managed to regrow a hand...shut up.

Jack and the Doctor are such an awesome team, tossing stuff around the control room like that and just being a well oiled machine even though they haven’t seen each other in years. Martha has no place in that dynamic, but you know they’re compensating for the lack of Rose.

“Why are you taking your clothes off?” Because RTD knows what the fangirls want, so the real question is why aren’t both of you? Yes Jack, you look *very* good.

ROSE-TALK!!! The crack in the Doctor’s voice when he talks about her, he’s so proud of what she did, even if he knows Jack shouldn’t exist. I guess that (mostly) explains why he never mentioned what happened to Jack, technically it was her fault, but he could never blame her. And Jack watched Rose grow up. I always said, if they really were going to cross timelines like that, that he ought to have, I just didn’t really expect that he had. Ah Jack, you *so* loved Rose, but you know that the Doctor loosing her is worse, worse enough to sympathize with him. And the Doctor knows Rose is “trapped” in Pete’s World; that she doesn’t want to be there any more than he really wants her there. It’s okay and better than death, but she’s not *here* where she should be.

Oh, and Martha so heard all that. Snicker. Of course so did the professor, which is probably a bad thing.

Get the feeling that the Doctor knew pretty much instantly which other Time Lord would have survived? Survived by hiding, just like the Cult of Skaro. But mostly, because the two of them are locked in eternal battle, but then he tried to say that things are different now, with just the two of them and I felt pretty bad for him in that moment. Because he would be willing to forget everything in their past and learn to live together in this new universe after the fall of Gallifrey, but the Master won’t. This is going to end badly.

Next week should be awesome, hopefully more Rose mentions and Jack banter. The pretty is pretty much assured.

Comments

[principia.livejournal.com]

RTD has stated that he prefers to center stories around humans because he feels the audience generally doesn't sympathize sufficiently with alien-centered stories - and one presumes that he doesn't want to take Star Trek's tack of making most of the aliens look like humans with some crap glued on their foreheads.

What The Doctor said to Jack when the guards were shooting was that they weren't his responsibility. And Jack sassed back at him in response.

[jedi_of_urth]

Well, that's part of the reason why I don't tend to complain about the fact that most stories are human based, because I do understand the logic. But that at the end of the universe only humans survive is just wrong to me. And the refugee characters were so unimportant to the story that I wish at least a few of them had been alien (aside from last of her kind assistant girl). Or give a reason why it's just the humans here, that could work too. Were only humans gullible enough to fall for the Utopia line?