TRB pic recap 2/3
Jul. 12th, 2007 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Alright, on to part two of TRB recap with pictures...
-See, this episode has a microcosm of a big problem with season three, we already know things about the Doctor and the more he tries to keep the companion from knowing things about him, the more the companion can’t be the audience’s viewpoint.

At least here it’s played for laughs that Donna doesn’t know the TARDIS is a time machine, as opposed to say Gridlock or Utopia where the disconnect is distinctly uncomfortable.
-That said I still love their interaction on the roof. She tells him it’s not his fault she missed the wedding, he’s happy she’s warming up to him, he loans her his jacket in a remote attempt to convince us it’s December. Bio-damping (which...um, why did he have a wedding ring bio-damper is his pocket?),

and Tennant looking quite pretty (wow, more than 15 minutes in before a pretty reference, to celebrate let’s have some pictures),



and Donna was hung-over during the Sycorax, which is odd though part of her not-getting-the-big-picture characterization, but you’d think she’d have heard something.
-Family.

I’ve always seen the way he trailed off here as realizing that he’d lost his family, again. His small little family that he got through Rose, and they were daft, but they were family. And it’s all gone now, Rose was bad enough, but that sense of family she gave him, present and future, it’s gone too. And he can’t keep it all inside but he doesn’t want to answer Donna’s direct questions about it.

Quite literally tight lipped on the subject.
-“Stop bleeping me.”

Donna won’t let him keep using her as a distraction/shield, I’m pretty sure of that. And a sort of semi-slap when he just goes off again. She’ll keep him grounded just fine.
-“Just one cup of coffee.” Yes I know it has darker reasons later, but now seems as good a time as any to bring up my couples as Bad Wolf of season three mantra. It’s couples everywhere, “Just one cup of coffee,” “We had chips,” everywhere people fall in love and they all choose to believe it will last forever, just like he did. Now he notices the couples in a way he didn’t before, and they’re everywhere, but he’s alone.
-Taking another moment of time to admire the pretty, the lighting works really well for him here.

-Of course it ties back to Torchwood.


In fact I think the Doctor’s anger at Torchwood is still not solved this season (he makes peace with Jack, but Torchwood as a whole I’m not sure).
-“You took me in, you stole my heart, I cannot roam no more...”

Sniffles. Poor Doctor, when all the blond girls remind him of Rose, and the song won’t give him any choice but to think about her. “Love Don’t Roam,” is just painful in that moment, because his love don’t roam anymore, he found it in one person and now he’s lost her. He’s so old now, so tired of wandering, his heart don’t wish to roam.
-You’re a doctor, you could help.

See, this is a very companiony thing to do, worry about the people that have been hurt while the Doctor is seeing what’s going on with the Santa’s. Make him notice that people have been hurt. It’s noteworthy here because it’s a turn from season 2 where he would have noticed even if all he had time to do was say “Sorry” between working on the big picture and season 3 where he doesn’t notice and no one calls him on it (except Jack).
-It now seems noteworthy that the Doctor says that Torchwood was destroyed, he really didn’t think they were still around, so he gets to be plenty surprised when he finds out about Jack.
-This about Donna linked to the Heart of the TARDIS, just like Rose and Jack, has been nagging me for a while. I want to matter in season 4, because I feel they *still* haven’t dealt with all the Bad Wolf effects, I feel like it may always be sitting on the back burner and never go away, particularly if Rose doesn’t come back, blame it on Bad Wolf Bay, but I can’t see this story being resolved without her.
-“Pencil inside a mug,” that’s just good fun.

-About this point I remember starting to think that Lance was turning into the Mickey of the story, and I think RTD used that expectation against us for the reveal later on.

“To honor and obey.” Thing is, the Doctor knows all about being whipped, but Donna’s style is very different from Rose’s.
-The segways are so random.

But it’s good to see them just have fun for a moment, it’s like Donna has just moved into the Doctor’s life and Lance hasn’t caught on yet.
-“You better come back.”
“Couldn’t get rid of you if I tried.”
I’m not sure why it is that I love that exchange, but I do. It has a certain Doctor/Rose quality about it but with a different spin and without being a direct callback, I think that helps a lot.
-“There a secret base hidden under a major London landmark.”
Oh, lots of them, human and alien. Under, above, inside, between, there are secret bases everywhere.
-Slap #2.

Doing the same thing he keeps doing, running away at the mouth, not seeming to take it seriously (though he really is), just babbling away. She’ll have to get used to that as a companion, but it’s nice to know she can slap him and make him actually talk about what’s going on sometimes too.
Also in slow motion you can see that DT does not do a great job of not anticipating the slap, oh the things you notice while screencapping.
-“I am not about to loose someone else.”

Which is pretty much how I expected him to be really. He cannot take another loss right now, all the universe does is take from him and he simply cannot take it anymore. I felt this attitude wasn’t explored enough with Martha over the season, it was there in the subtext, but it never really became as important as I felt it should be. He’s desperate for something to hold onto and he can’t loose anyone else, I guess it was a definite subtext (practically text) with the Master but not enough with regard to companions.
-Hmmm, the Rachnos makes it sound like something had been uncovered that brought her around here to Earth to dig up the nest. The Doctor seems to assume it was Torchwood and that’s quite possible I suppose, but I don’t know.
-“Dinosaurs?”


Huh?
Well, I’m sure Donna won’t remain so thick as a companion, but at least she was trying to help. Yes Martha I’m looking at you getting snotty about him missing Rose when you weren’t doing anything useful.
-Again this is Donna showing so much more companion material in one episode than Martha all season. She stands up, talks back, says no.

And just as you think Lance, like Mickey, is going to turn out to be a hero, he turns out to be a monster himself (not an alien, but a monster).

Why am I ending the partitions on downer thoughts this time around? Well, it is kind of an angst episode for all its comedy. I'll be back with part three, but probably sometime tomorrow and then we'll see about S&J.
-See, this episode has a microcosm of a big problem with season three, we already know things about the Doctor and the more he tries to keep the companion from knowing things about him, the more the companion can’t be the audience’s viewpoint.

At least here it’s played for laughs that Donna doesn’t know the TARDIS is a time machine, as opposed to say Gridlock or Utopia where the disconnect is distinctly uncomfortable.
-That said I still love their interaction on the roof. She tells him it’s not his fault she missed the wedding, he’s happy she’s warming up to him, he loans her his jacket in a remote attempt to convince us it’s December. Bio-damping (which...um, why did he have a wedding ring bio-damper is his pocket?),

and Tennant looking quite pretty (wow, more than 15 minutes in before a pretty reference, to celebrate let’s have some pictures),



and Donna was hung-over during the Sycorax, which is odd though part of her not-getting-the-big-picture characterization, but you’d think she’d have heard something.
-Family.

I’ve always seen the way he trailed off here as realizing that he’d lost his family, again. His small little family that he got through Rose, and they were daft, but they were family. And it’s all gone now, Rose was bad enough, but that sense of family she gave him, present and future, it’s gone too. And he can’t keep it all inside but he doesn’t want to answer Donna’s direct questions about it.

Quite literally tight lipped on the subject.
-“Stop bleeping me.”

Donna won’t let him keep using her as a distraction/shield, I’m pretty sure of that. And a sort of semi-slap when he just goes off again. She’ll keep him grounded just fine.
-“Just one cup of coffee.” Yes I know it has darker reasons later, but now seems as good a time as any to bring up my couples as Bad Wolf of season three mantra. It’s couples everywhere, “Just one cup of coffee,” “We had chips,” everywhere people fall in love and they all choose to believe it will last forever, just like he did. Now he notices the couples in a way he didn’t before, and they’re everywhere, but he’s alone.
-Taking another moment of time to admire the pretty, the lighting works really well for him here.

-Of course it ties back to Torchwood.


In fact I think the Doctor’s anger at Torchwood is still not solved this season (he makes peace with Jack, but Torchwood as a whole I’m not sure).
-“You took me in, you stole my heart, I cannot roam no more...”

Sniffles. Poor Doctor, when all the blond girls remind him of Rose, and the song won’t give him any choice but to think about her. “Love Don’t Roam,” is just painful in that moment, because his love don’t roam anymore, he found it in one person and now he’s lost her. He’s so old now, so tired of wandering, his heart don’t wish to roam.
-You’re a doctor, you could help.

See, this is a very companiony thing to do, worry about the people that have been hurt while the Doctor is seeing what’s going on with the Santa’s. Make him notice that people have been hurt. It’s noteworthy here because it’s a turn from season 2 where he would have noticed even if all he had time to do was say “Sorry” between working on the big picture and season 3 where he doesn’t notice and no one calls him on it (except Jack).
-It now seems noteworthy that the Doctor says that Torchwood was destroyed, he really didn’t think they were still around, so he gets to be plenty surprised when he finds out about Jack.
-This about Donna linked to the Heart of the TARDIS, just like Rose and Jack, has been nagging me for a while. I want to matter in season 4, because I feel they *still* haven’t dealt with all the Bad Wolf effects, I feel like it may always be sitting on the back burner and never go away, particularly if Rose doesn’t come back, blame it on Bad Wolf Bay, but I can’t see this story being resolved without her.
-“Pencil inside a mug,” that’s just good fun.

-About this point I remember starting to think that Lance was turning into the Mickey of the story, and I think RTD used that expectation against us for the reveal later on.

“To honor and obey.” Thing is, the Doctor knows all about being whipped, but Donna’s style is very different from Rose’s.
-The segways are so random.

But it’s good to see them just have fun for a moment, it’s like Donna has just moved into the Doctor’s life and Lance hasn’t caught on yet.
-“You better come back.”
“Couldn’t get rid of you if I tried.”
I’m not sure why it is that I love that exchange, but I do. It has a certain Doctor/Rose quality about it but with a different spin and without being a direct callback, I think that helps a lot.
-“There a secret base hidden under a major London landmark.”
Oh, lots of them, human and alien. Under, above, inside, between, there are secret bases everywhere.
-Slap #2.

Doing the same thing he keeps doing, running away at the mouth, not seeming to take it seriously (though he really is), just babbling away. She’ll have to get used to that as a companion, but it’s nice to know she can slap him and make him actually talk about what’s going on sometimes too.
Also in slow motion you can see that DT does not do a great job of not anticipating the slap, oh the things you notice while screencapping.
-“I am not about to loose someone else.”

Which is pretty much how I expected him to be really. He cannot take another loss right now, all the universe does is take from him and he simply cannot take it anymore. I felt this attitude wasn’t explored enough with Martha over the season, it was there in the subtext, but it never really became as important as I felt it should be. He’s desperate for something to hold onto and he can’t loose anyone else, I guess it was a definite subtext (practically text) with the Master but not enough with regard to companions.
-Hmmm, the Rachnos makes it sound like something had been uncovered that brought her around here to Earth to dig up the nest. The Doctor seems to assume it was Torchwood and that’s quite possible I suppose, but I don’t know.
-“Dinosaurs?”


Huh?
Well, I’m sure Donna won’t remain so thick as a companion, but at least she was trying to help. Yes Martha I’m looking at you getting snotty about him missing Rose when you weren’t doing anything useful.
-Again this is Donna showing so much more companion material in one episode than Martha all season. She stands up, talks back, says no.

And just as you think Lance, like Mickey, is going to turn out to be a hero, he turns out to be a monster himself (not an alien, but a monster).

Why am I ending the partitions on downer thoughts this time around? Well, it is kind of an angst episode for all its comedy. I'll be back with part three, but probably sometime tomorrow and then we'll see about S&J.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-13 09:03 am (UTC)Is it sad that I immediately tried to think up reasons that somehow involved Rose? Probably.
I want to matter in season 4, because I feel they *still* haven’t dealt with all the Bad Wolf effects, I feel like it may always be sitting on the back burner and never go away, particularly if Rose doesn’t come back, blame it on Bad Wolf Bay, but I can’t see this story being resolved without her.
I agree. There are all these dangling threads that I want to see tied up. I know the anti-Rose camp hates how some people relate everything back to Rose, but I almost think it's impossible not to. She's the Doctor's driving force, she's the reason Jack's immortal, she bonded with a Dalek and later destroyed the emperor. Even Martha, whose character arc consisted of the journey to stepping out of Rose's shadow (I'm generalizing, I know). Rose has had a profound effect on all the main players as well as the universe itself, and I hate the idea that the show won't explore this.
Yes Martha I’m looking at you getting snotty about him missing Rose when you weren’t doing anything useful.
*looks at Martha with you*
no subject
Date: 2007-07-13 09:27 pm (UTC)No more sad than my new desire to see some write a fic wherein with Rose that explains the wedding ring bio-damper.
Rose has had a profound effect on all the main players as well as the universe itself
Exactly, Rose's mark on the universe cannot be denied, the emotional plots all run through Rose and so much of the plot can be linked back to the Bad Wolf a/k/a Rose. We aren't making it up, and I almost think it's too late to stop showing continued Bad Wolf signs/fallout because we've already seen enough that we know it's still out there (I still say that as long as Jack is around and immortal, there will always be a big 'Rose was here' sign in the universe, and if they don't give some big reason for Jack's immortality, it's going to feel like unfinished business Rose needs to come back to see to).