"Smith and Jones" pic recap 1/3
Jul. 15th, 2007 03:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urthThis recap just kept getting longer and longer as I worked on it, but finally I can start posting it. So here's part 1, much retroactive deciding that Martha had problems from the beginning and commenting on DT's hair style will follow.
-Meet the Jones’.
Hope you like the snippets you get because you’re not going to get much more detail about them than you can gleam from their brief introductions. What we get very little of is understanding how Martha’s family relates to each other, unless they really don’t and they just relate to her. What I wouldn’t give for one of them to have half of Jackie’s characterization even in ‘Rose’. Yes I am still annoyed by the way the Jones’ were used this season, and no I don’t expect to get over it any time soon.
-The Doctor is quite obviously from a later point in time. Were we expected not to get that?
If anything I half expected it to be from even later in the season than the end of the episode. I know Martha doesn’t know he’s a time traveler, but as a viewer it could not be more obvious. Again with the problem of Martha being an outsider that we can’t see through. In ‘Rose’ even if you weren’t new the Doctor Who, there was a certain mystery about how this world fit together, and a lot of things had been reinvented so some mysteriousness remained, now not so much mystery. Actually, three seasons later, ‘Rose’ still has an air of the mystery that is utterly lacking here.
-Already I feel like I know more about Martha’s boss/teacher than I do Martha. But maybe that’s just because I’ve been watching Scrubs and it seems all medical teachers are the same, regardless of continent or show.
(Also when getting pictures I discover my boy random guy/Morgenstern is one of Martha’s classmates, he makes an impression later, not so much here.)
-Oh there’s the Doctor, in his cute little pajamas which may well in fact by Howard’s pajamas, which would mean he was totally thinking about Rose.
-Martha tells the Doctor about the tie incident, so he knows he’ll go back and do that later.
I like causality when it’s done decently.
-The Doctor doesn’t know the meaning of the words “under cover” with name dropping Benjamin Franklin and saucily winking at people who discover his two hearts. But at least teacher guy notices and thinks maybe he needs a psychiatrist.
-Why did I really want to take and share this screen-cap of Martha?
Because I like silly faces in accidental screen-caps and it’s my recap thank you very much (not that this isn’t already turning into a really long very picture heavy recap mind you, but I can’t resist).
-I like Tish, I don’t know that she’d make a good companion, but I like her.
If only she actually got some real character development I’d be very happy.
-Random Doctor wandering...
never a good sign...well not when there’s something like this going on and he hasn’t got anyone with him. And I think that is definitely Howard’s robe and pj's. I wonder what happened to Howard, and does the Doctor continue to find/keep snacks in his pockets? Has he dimensionally transcendentalized the pockets yet for the purposes of more snacks?
-Tish and Martha’s friend are both more observant than Martha regarding the rain. Tell me again why she’s companion material?
-Some really stellar acting going on in the teleport to the moon, yeah I’m really convinced they weren’t just throwing themselves around the room and the camera was banging about.
The effects on the outside are pretty though.
-So of course every single person in the hospital panics, no one is like “Wow, cool, we’re on the moon” or just says “No way, it’s a trick” or “Dude have I gone mental?” or snaps photos on their phone or starts singing “Whalers on the moon,” or anything. Nope, every single person panics, except Martha because she’s just that awesome.
-Also, note that Martha’s hospital is right across from Big Ben.
Which means it nearly got crashed into by a spaceship a couple years back, and it could have been a useful location when dealing with a certain Prime Minister, not that it is because that would make Martha’s normal life important to the story. I should probably get back to talking about the actual plot shouldn’t I?
-In any case, of course the Doctor likes Martha, because she does everything right, none of this assuming it was students acting silly stuff that was so important in establishing Rose’s story.
I think this is why I kept connecting with the guest stars more this season than I ever did with Martha, they had growth, they had personal learning curves; they just decided to make Martha completely capable from the start, so where did she have to go?
-You know this is an incredibly romantic spot, standing on the porch bathed in Earth-light, but these two are very expressly not touching in the lovely setup.
-I can’t decide how I feel that Martha immediately starts in on the ways this being on the moon effects her life and party plans. On one hand it does make sense that she’s overwhelmed and I can’t really hold against her the way that expresses itself and this even kind of makes sense. On the other hand one, dude, you’re on the *moon* and two, she barely knows this guy and I don’t see her as overwhelmed enough to be poring out her life story to a stranger.
-This is where the companion-interview begins. “Do you want to go back in?” “What do you think?”
And if I didn’t know better, I’d say Martha had deliberately picked the best answers, RTD certainly made sure to give her all the right responses so there could be absolutely no question that she should be a companion. Again, it fails to make her interesting.
-I wonder if the Doctor even remembers Adeola, his response seems more generally sympathetic than “Sorry I finished killing your cousin and leading to her brain getting ripped out.”
This also begs the question, what does Martha think happened to her cousin, or anyone else during the Cybermen invasion. She probably doesn’t know her cousin worked for Torchwood since back then they actually were a secret organization who didn’t drive around in a car with their name on it. Where does the world think the Cybermen came from? That that never gets answered is weird since they went to the trouble of setting up Adeola here (yes it was to explain the characters looking alike because of the same actress, but still…it felt more important than that, partially since it tied back to Canary Wharf).
-Completely unfair point, but considering Martha gets snippy that Jack is happy Rose didn’t die she kind of brought it on herself. She seems to want sympathy for having had a cousin die at Canary Wharf, but seeing as this is the last we hear about her I doubt they were that close, so she gets a retroactive extra strike in my book for playing the sympathy card here. And where the Doctor offers her sympathy, she doesn’t show any concern when he talks about how he was in the battle, much less the catch in his voice as he does so. Yes, like I said completely unfair and I’m probably just looking for problems now that at the beginning of the season I didn’t even consider noticing, but well, I’m more attuned to the flaws in Martha’s characterization now. She wants someone to care about her, but she doesn’t want the responsibility of caring for someone else, I still don’t know if it’s was intentional of if I’m reading something that wasn’t there, but it seems mighty consistent.
-He gets so quiet and still when talking about the Battle of Canary Wharf, he’s so sad, but he’s still pretty (though the pointy hair isn’t exactly working for him).
-You know what, this scene is exhausting me on recapping, it’s really not that long but there’s still more I could probably say and it’s already taken up a disproportionately large amount of talking. And you’ll note that very little of it is complementary to anything but DT’s acting chops and the general prettiness (of both the setting and David).
Part 2 will be up later, after I go and do a couple other things.
-Meet the Jones’.
Hope you like the snippets you get because you’re not going to get much more detail about them than you can gleam from their brief introductions. What we get very little of is understanding how Martha’s family relates to each other, unless they really don’t and they just relate to her. What I wouldn’t give for one of them to have half of Jackie’s characterization even in ‘Rose’. Yes I am still annoyed by the way the Jones’ were used this season, and no I don’t expect to get over it any time soon.
-The Doctor is quite obviously from a later point in time. Were we expected not to get that?
If anything I half expected it to be from even later in the season than the end of the episode. I know Martha doesn’t know he’s a time traveler, but as a viewer it could not be more obvious. Again with the problem of Martha being an outsider that we can’t see through. In ‘Rose’ even if you weren’t new the Doctor Who, there was a certain mystery about how this world fit together, and a lot of things had been reinvented so some mysteriousness remained, now not so much mystery. Actually, three seasons later, ‘Rose’ still has an air of the mystery that is utterly lacking here.
-Already I feel like I know more about Martha’s boss/teacher than I do Martha. But maybe that’s just because I’ve been watching Scrubs and it seems all medical teachers are the same, regardless of continent or show.
(Also when getting pictures I discover my boy random guy/Morgenstern is one of Martha’s classmates, he makes an impression later, not so much here.)
-Oh there’s the Doctor, in his cute little pajamas which may well in fact by Howard’s pajamas, which would mean he was totally thinking about Rose.
-Martha tells the Doctor about the tie incident, so he knows he’ll go back and do that later.
I like causality when it’s done decently.
-The Doctor doesn’t know the meaning of the words “under cover” with name dropping Benjamin Franklin and saucily winking at people who discover his two hearts. But at least teacher guy notices and thinks maybe he needs a psychiatrist.
-Why did I really want to take and share this screen-cap of Martha?
Because I like silly faces in accidental screen-caps and it’s my recap thank you very much (not that this isn’t already turning into a really long very picture heavy recap mind you, but I can’t resist).
-I like Tish, I don’t know that she’d make a good companion, but I like her.
If only she actually got some real character development I’d be very happy.
-Random Doctor wandering...
never a good sign...well not when there’s something like this going on and he hasn’t got anyone with him. And I think that is definitely Howard’s robe and pj's. I wonder what happened to Howard, and does the Doctor continue to find/keep snacks in his pockets? Has he dimensionally transcendentalized the pockets yet for the purposes of more snacks?
-Tish and Martha’s friend are both more observant than Martha regarding the rain. Tell me again why she’s companion material?
-Some really stellar acting going on in the teleport to the moon, yeah I’m really convinced they weren’t just throwing themselves around the room and the camera was banging about.
The effects on the outside are pretty though.
-So of course every single person in the hospital panics, no one is like “Wow, cool, we’re on the moon” or just says “No way, it’s a trick” or “Dude have I gone mental?” or snaps photos on their phone or starts singing “Whalers on the moon,” or anything. Nope, every single person panics, except Martha because she’s just that awesome.
-Also, note that Martha’s hospital is right across from Big Ben.
Which means it nearly got crashed into by a spaceship a couple years back, and it could have been a useful location when dealing with a certain Prime Minister, not that it is because that would make Martha’s normal life important to the story. I should probably get back to talking about the actual plot shouldn’t I?
-In any case, of course the Doctor likes Martha, because she does everything right, none of this assuming it was students acting silly stuff that was so important in establishing Rose’s story.
I think this is why I kept connecting with the guest stars more this season than I ever did with Martha, they had growth, they had personal learning curves; they just decided to make Martha completely capable from the start, so where did she have to go?
-You know this is an incredibly romantic spot, standing on the porch bathed in Earth-light, but these two are very expressly not touching in the lovely setup.
-I can’t decide how I feel that Martha immediately starts in on the ways this being on the moon effects her life and party plans. On one hand it does make sense that she’s overwhelmed and I can’t really hold against her the way that expresses itself and this even kind of makes sense. On the other hand one, dude, you’re on the *moon* and two, she barely knows this guy and I don’t see her as overwhelmed enough to be poring out her life story to a stranger.
-This is where the companion-interview begins. “Do you want to go back in?” “What do you think?”
And if I didn’t know better, I’d say Martha had deliberately picked the best answers, RTD certainly made sure to give her all the right responses so there could be absolutely no question that she should be a companion. Again, it fails to make her interesting.
-I wonder if the Doctor even remembers Adeola, his response seems more generally sympathetic than “Sorry I finished killing your cousin and leading to her brain getting ripped out.”
This also begs the question, what does Martha think happened to her cousin, or anyone else during the Cybermen invasion. She probably doesn’t know her cousin worked for Torchwood since back then they actually were a secret organization who didn’t drive around in a car with their name on it. Where does the world think the Cybermen came from? That that never gets answered is weird since they went to the trouble of setting up Adeola here (yes it was to explain the characters looking alike because of the same actress, but still…it felt more important than that, partially since it tied back to Canary Wharf).
-Completely unfair point, but considering Martha gets snippy that Jack is happy Rose didn’t die she kind of brought it on herself. She seems to want sympathy for having had a cousin die at Canary Wharf, but seeing as this is the last we hear about her I doubt they were that close, so she gets a retroactive extra strike in my book for playing the sympathy card here. And where the Doctor offers her sympathy, she doesn’t show any concern when he talks about how he was in the battle, much less the catch in his voice as he does so. Yes, like I said completely unfair and I’m probably just looking for problems now that at the beginning of the season I didn’t even consider noticing, but well, I’m more attuned to the flaws in Martha’s characterization now. She wants someone to care about her, but she doesn’t want the responsibility of caring for someone else, I still don’t know if it’s was intentional of if I’m reading something that wasn’t there, but it seems mighty consistent.
-He gets so quiet and still when talking about the Battle of Canary Wharf, he’s so sad, but he’s still pretty (though the pointy hair isn’t exactly working for him).
-You know what, this scene is exhausting me on recapping, it’s really not that long but there’s still more I could probably say and it’s already taken up a disproportionately large amount of talking. And you’ll note that very little of it is complementary to anything but DT’s acting chops and the general prettiness (of both the setting and David).
Part 2 will be up later, after I go and do a couple other things.
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no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 10:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-17 08:24 pm (UTC)My mother didn't, but as it was her second Doctor Who episode ever, I'm willing to cut her some slack. :-)