jedi_of_urth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jedi_of_urth) wrote2007-12-15 11:41 pm
jedi_of_urth) wrote2007-12-15 11:41 pm
Entry tags:
Way too long but there you have it
So before fandom exploded I wrote up this very long rant about all the ways RTD and the Doctor Who PTB are awesome for the way they handled the Doctor/Rose story and now I am inclined to share.
Oh me of little faith: Thoughts on my own expectations and how Doctor Who keeps surpassing them
Alright, here’s something I strangely like telling people, I didn’t start off the show as a Doctor/Rose shipper. It seems strange now to think that there was a time when I didn’t want them to be together as a romantic pair but there was. But to tell this, and set up for later talk I feel the need to back up even more.
I had only seen bits of Doctor Who when I was younger, I knew next to nothing about it really and mostly just coveted the fact that the main character had a really long scarf (even though I never wore scarves as a child). I remember vaguely that I saw ‘The Five Doctors’ and ‘Pyramids of Mars’ at one point because my mom was able to find them at the local video store. I think I may have also seen ‘Kinda’ of all things that way, and for all I know a couple others but I don’t remember very many. I know my parents used to watch it on PBS when I was even younger than that, but I don’t actually remember any of that. I remember thinking Five was cute even if he didn’t have a scarf but having no idea what the characters were doing in ‘Five Doctors’ really.
And really, my first thought when I started seeing previews for New Who was that it was a remake. I thought that was awesome, that someone had decided to remake the show as something new, like Battlestar Galactica (which was probably why I thought it was a remake, I was seeing previews on the Sci-Fi Channel during BSG for the most part). Thinking on it now, I almost think it would have been easier to make something wholly new than the continuation that was actually made, but the show structure made it easy enough to start fresh even though it was built onto the old show.
But, while I was thinking it was re-imagining, or at least more remake than continuation, and not bringing long term fan views to the show, I brought baggage of years of television watching to it; and in many ways, at the start Doctor/Rose pinged on my anti-ship buttons…and they were completely obvious the “it” ship on the show. The truth is Nine was rather emotionally manipulative at the start and before it became clear what had made him that way I had a hard time getting behind it. He had such a tough guy exterior which is so not my thing that again, I had to see past that. She had a boyfriend who was seemed quite plainly there just to keep the “it” couple apart and I seem to be one of the rare people who liked Mickey from the start, or at least felt sorry for him.
And if a show is going to have such an obvious “it” couple, for me they really have to earn it and the first time through, the first few episodes didn’t seem anything special. It just seemed like a normal show, throwing shippy prospects out there but not willing to go anywhere with it, not making it mean anything. Yes I know better now, but the first time through it…look I did, and to a lesser extent still do, ship Kara/Lee but if the writers are willing to make their relationship count and stick more than a few episodes before the end of the series I’ll be surprised, and if I’ll still want it if/when they do I’ll be surprised by that too.
The first few episodes steadily made me love Rose and the Doctor as individuals but when it came to them as a couple I still was looking at it cock-eyed, thinking “They want me to ship these two but really, why should I?” Well I got my answer with one line, “I could save the world but lose you.”
And just like that my view of the show was righted, I realized I’d been looking at it backwards, this suddenly seemed it wasn’t a case of the writers just having an “it” couple to have some UST in the show that might never be justified let alone matter; they were playing honest with me in fact, they were writing a love story. There was nothing coy or subtextual about that line, that seemed an open declaration of the show’s intent regarding the romance aspect.
And I didn’t have a gap between watching season 1 and 2, but if I had I probably would have expected the writers to use the regeneration as an excuse to reset the relationship, to throw roadblocks in the way of their lead couple and pull them back from the point they got to in PotW. If television watching has taught me anything it’s that forward motion of romance plots tends to be slowed, halted, or reversed at the earliest opportunity.
But again RTD didn’t follow that expectation (the one I never had the chance to have), instead we got TCI, and yes she was unsure how to react but then he woke up and smiled at her, asked if she thought he was sexy, and she knew it was him. And he came to dinner with her and her family and they held hands and watched the ash-snow fall. And on top of that there was Song for Ten, which even before I knew was an original composition I thought was a pretty blatant declaration when it came to the love story, and again, being blatant about a love story like this still surprises me.
By the end of season 2 I was at least enough in fandom to know that a) Rose was leaving and b) people were toting out the “companions leave” bat. So there was all kinds of speculation about how Rose would leave the Doctor, how she would chose to go home and “have her own life,” or even that he would leave her behind. And if I were to go looking I could probably find some statements of mine to the effect of “It doesn’t really make sense but they could pull something out of left field since we know she’s going to leave.” And when the only “reasonable” options seem to be her dying or choosing to leave, and when you also know that killing main characters isn’t standard procedure on most any show, the from left field leaving option seems likely. And anyway, who can expect reasonable character development when it comes to dealing with main actors leaving shows?
Apparently, Russell T. Davis does, that’s who. To give us scenes of “Forever” and “I made my choice a long time ago.” To need the war in heaven to split up a couple, to need a whole universe (or two) to come between them. To make walls and beaches heartbreaking, to have the Doctor cry, to have him burn up a sun just to say goodbye. Oh the cut off “I love you,” is in fact a total cliché, to deny the characters and viewers hearing the words but I don’t think I’ve ever heard any member of the production team *seriously* deny that was what he would have said.
But that didn’t make me trust them going into season 3. I’ve still watched enough TV to expect grief to be short, and/or subtextual at best. I think I was more prone to saying “How are they *not* going to make The Runaway Bride all about grief?” but I figured they would, it sounded like it would be fairly comedic, and I figured after that we would have heard the last of Rose and while there might be *some* subtext there to pick over the show would move on.
We’ve all seen TRB and season 3 right? I was wrong again. Yes there were madcap adventures but there is an awful lot that is about Rose and the Doctor’s grief after having just lost her. TRB went beyond my expectations as far as that went and I *still* hadn’t learned to trust the writers because it was possible (or I thought probable) that while they had had been faithful to the emotional context considering the fact that TRB immediately followed Doomsday, there was no reason to expect that to carry over into the next season when they could easily shove it into the background like most normal shows would. Only they didn’t.
They didn’t try and downplay how much Rose had meant to him, or how much losing her hurt him. They didn’t have the Doctor move on to another love interest as soon as Rose was gone. They didn’t treat people as interchangeable parts in the Doctor’s life. They didn’t even forget that Jack loved her too when the time came for him to come back, in fact they went above and beyond my wildest expectations with having Jack admit to watching Rose grow up.
So now, with the spoilers that Billie Piper is coming back, I think I have finally learned to have faith in this team. I have my worries yes, I have concerns depending on how long she’s staying, and I wouldn’t really be surprised if it ends in tears again. But…I think there’s a pretty slim chance that whatever happens it’s going to destroy the Doctor/Rose ship. Beach it again maybe, but actually destroy what is one of the greatest love stories I’ve seen…? When it has survived and grown when one of the parties isn’t even there? When she’s the name that keeps him fighting, his star, the one thing he believes in, and his perfect Rose?
To put it another way, they had their chance to kill it, they had their chance to sweep it aside, they had their chance to reverse direction on it, they had their chance to pretend it away. They didn’t do any of that and now if they tried it wouldn’t fit; but I don’t believe they would try. They believe in this too, they’ve committed to it, they made their choice a long time ago.
I’m still cautious enough to know my hopes may well be too high, and try to keep my expectations low. But even my lowest expectations won’t allow them to part by choice. Even my sarcastic, low expectations of TV portrayals of romance side thinks they’re going to have to invent some pretty good reasons to get around kisses and declarations of love this time because even though it isn’t “supposed” to happen on the show it’s exactly what *should* happen. And now, I think trust them to know that much at least.
Trust is just a different sort of scary.
Oh me of little faith: Thoughts on my own expectations and how Doctor Who keeps surpassing them
Alright, here’s something I strangely like telling people, I didn’t start off the show as a Doctor/Rose shipper. It seems strange now to think that there was a time when I didn’t want them to be together as a romantic pair but there was. But to tell this, and set up for later talk I feel the need to back up even more.
I had only seen bits of Doctor Who when I was younger, I knew next to nothing about it really and mostly just coveted the fact that the main character had a really long scarf (even though I never wore scarves as a child). I remember vaguely that I saw ‘The Five Doctors’ and ‘Pyramids of Mars’ at one point because my mom was able to find them at the local video store. I think I may have also seen ‘Kinda’ of all things that way, and for all I know a couple others but I don’t remember very many. I know my parents used to watch it on PBS when I was even younger than that, but I don’t actually remember any of that. I remember thinking Five was cute even if he didn’t have a scarf but having no idea what the characters were doing in ‘Five Doctors’ really.
And really, my first thought when I started seeing previews for New Who was that it was a remake. I thought that was awesome, that someone had decided to remake the show as something new, like Battlestar Galactica (which was probably why I thought it was a remake, I was seeing previews on the Sci-Fi Channel during BSG for the most part). Thinking on it now, I almost think it would have been easier to make something wholly new than the continuation that was actually made, but the show structure made it easy enough to start fresh even though it was built onto the old show.
But, while I was thinking it was re-imagining, or at least more remake than continuation, and not bringing long term fan views to the show, I brought baggage of years of television watching to it; and in many ways, at the start Doctor/Rose pinged on my anti-ship buttons…and they were completely obvious the “it” ship on the show. The truth is Nine was rather emotionally manipulative at the start and before it became clear what had made him that way I had a hard time getting behind it. He had such a tough guy exterior which is so not my thing that again, I had to see past that. She had a boyfriend who was seemed quite plainly there just to keep the “it” couple apart and I seem to be one of the rare people who liked Mickey from the start, or at least felt sorry for him.
And if a show is going to have such an obvious “it” couple, for me they really have to earn it and the first time through, the first few episodes didn’t seem anything special. It just seemed like a normal show, throwing shippy prospects out there but not willing to go anywhere with it, not making it mean anything. Yes I know better now, but the first time through it…look I did, and to a lesser extent still do, ship Kara/Lee but if the writers are willing to make their relationship count and stick more than a few episodes before the end of the series I’ll be surprised, and if I’ll still want it if/when they do I’ll be surprised by that too.
The first few episodes steadily made me love Rose and the Doctor as individuals but when it came to them as a couple I still was looking at it cock-eyed, thinking “They want me to ship these two but really, why should I?” Well I got my answer with one line, “I could save the world but lose you.”
And just like that my view of the show was righted, I realized I’d been looking at it backwards, this suddenly seemed it wasn’t a case of the writers just having an “it” couple to have some UST in the show that might never be justified let alone matter; they were playing honest with me in fact, they were writing a love story. There was nothing coy or subtextual about that line, that seemed an open declaration of the show’s intent regarding the romance aspect.
And I didn’t have a gap between watching season 1 and 2, but if I had I probably would have expected the writers to use the regeneration as an excuse to reset the relationship, to throw roadblocks in the way of their lead couple and pull them back from the point they got to in PotW. If television watching has taught me anything it’s that forward motion of romance plots tends to be slowed, halted, or reversed at the earliest opportunity.
But again RTD didn’t follow that expectation (the one I never had the chance to have), instead we got TCI, and yes she was unsure how to react but then he woke up and smiled at her, asked if she thought he was sexy, and she knew it was him. And he came to dinner with her and her family and they held hands and watched the ash-snow fall. And on top of that there was Song for Ten, which even before I knew was an original composition I thought was a pretty blatant declaration when it came to the love story, and again, being blatant about a love story like this still surprises me.
By the end of season 2 I was at least enough in fandom to know that a) Rose was leaving and b) people were toting out the “companions leave” bat. So there was all kinds of speculation about how Rose would leave the Doctor, how she would chose to go home and “have her own life,” or even that he would leave her behind. And if I were to go looking I could probably find some statements of mine to the effect of “It doesn’t really make sense but they could pull something out of left field since we know she’s going to leave.” And when the only “reasonable” options seem to be her dying or choosing to leave, and when you also know that killing main characters isn’t standard procedure on most any show, the from left field leaving option seems likely. And anyway, who can expect reasonable character development when it comes to dealing with main actors leaving shows?
Apparently, Russell T. Davis does, that’s who. To give us scenes of “Forever” and “I made my choice a long time ago.” To need the war in heaven to split up a couple, to need a whole universe (or two) to come between them. To make walls and beaches heartbreaking, to have the Doctor cry, to have him burn up a sun just to say goodbye. Oh the cut off “I love you,” is in fact a total cliché, to deny the characters and viewers hearing the words but I don’t think I’ve ever heard any member of the production team *seriously* deny that was what he would have said.
But that didn’t make me trust them going into season 3. I’ve still watched enough TV to expect grief to be short, and/or subtextual at best. I think I was more prone to saying “How are they *not* going to make The Runaway Bride all about grief?” but I figured they would, it sounded like it would be fairly comedic, and I figured after that we would have heard the last of Rose and while there might be *some* subtext there to pick over the show would move on.
We’ve all seen TRB and season 3 right? I was wrong again. Yes there were madcap adventures but there is an awful lot that is about Rose and the Doctor’s grief after having just lost her. TRB went beyond my expectations as far as that went and I *still* hadn’t learned to trust the writers because it was possible (or I thought probable) that while they had had been faithful to the emotional context considering the fact that TRB immediately followed Doomsday, there was no reason to expect that to carry over into the next season when they could easily shove it into the background like most normal shows would. Only they didn’t.
They didn’t try and downplay how much Rose had meant to him, or how much losing her hurt him. They didn’t have the Doctor move on to another love interest as soon as Rose was gone. They didn’t treat people as interchangeable parts in the Doctor’s life. They didn’t even forget that Jack loved her too when the time came for him to come back, in fact they went above and beyond my wildest expectations with having Jack admit to watching Rose grow up.
So now, with the spoilers that Billie Piper is coming back, I think I have finally learned to have faith in this team. I have my worries yes, I have concerns depending on how long she’s staying, and I wouldn’t really be surprised if it ends in tears again. But…I think there’s a pretty slim chance that whatever happens it’s going to destroy the Doctor/Rose ship. Beach it again maybe, but actually destroy what is one of the greatest love stories I’ve seen…? When it has survived and grown when one of the parties isn’t even there? When she’s the name that keeps him fighting, his star, the one thing he believes in, and his perfect Rose?
To put it another way, they had their chance to kill it, they had their chance to sweep it aside, they had their chance to reverse direction on it, they had their chance to pretend it away. They didn’t do any of that and now if they tried it wouldn’t fit; but I don’t believe they would try. They believe in this too, they’ve committed to it, they made their choice a long time ago.
I’m still cautious enough to know my hopes may well be too high, and try to keep my expectations low. But even my lowest expectations won’t allow them to part by choice. Even my sarcastic, low expectations of TV portrayals of romance side thinks they’re going to have to invent some pretty good reasons to get around kisses and declarations of love this time because even though it isn’t “supposed” to happen on the show it’s exactly what *should* happen. And now, I think trust them to know that much at least.
Trust is just a different sort of scary.
no subject
(no subject)
no subject
Articulate, well thought out and brilliantly reasoned.
I'm going to mem this post so when I'm feeling nervous about S4 and Rose's return I can come back, reread this and have faith in TPTB again :)
And I may be back to comment later when I'm more coherent. At the moment I'm still in DT-may-be-leaving shock.
(no subject)
no subject
But she wasn't. Some of those scenes in TRB still make me tear up.
I don't know if I quite trust them, but the fact that I've been wrong before is keeping me hoping. And stopping me from posting panicked LJ posts every single day!
(no subject)
no subject
This post is *amazing.* It sums up my love for Doctor Who and why I think Doctor/Rose really is one of the best crafted TV love stories of ever. And also why I'm cautiously hopeful about BP coming back. (Message to RTD: My heart is a sensitive creature. Don't go chopping off pieces if you're not going to give them back!)
To give us scenes of “Forever” and “I made my choice a long time ago.” To need the war in heaven to split up a couple, to need a whole universe (or two) to come between them. To make walls and beaches heartbreaking, to have the Doctor cry, to have him burn up a sun just to say goodbye.
That might have made me sniffle. Just a bit!
Any chance you could unlock this so I could point other people in its direction?
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
no subject
Even with all that, I still can't let myself completely trust. The cliches are too deeply ingrained in me, I think.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
no subject
(no subject)
no subject
Lovely post. Very well thought-out and very well-written. :)
(no subject)
no subject
And you might have rest assured some of my concerns for Rose's return.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
no subject
But RTD and TPTB are adults, they knew what they were doing when they wrote S3 and the fact that Rose was mentioned all the way up to the last episode (with the Master mentioning the time vortex) seems to signify something. When all of the production team, the actors (I mean even DT, ultimate DW fanboy (no sex in the Tardis!), declared Rose "the love of his life"), hell, even the composer loves D/R, I think I'll put my faith behind them. They probably have a great reason/idea for bringing BP back (as she said herself that "it is a great story").
So, I'm pretty much in love with this post. I recently watched Series 1 (I actually saw S2 first, so I accidently did it out of order), and I can't believe how they sucked me in to romance. I fell for them at that line as well, "I could save the world but lose you." and what surprises me now is that that line occured in episode 5. And I totally bought it. That's how awesome the actors/writers are. =) Not to mention that my roommate, who totally didn't ship D/R with 10 (she said Rose loved the Doctor more than he did her), is now shipping them like crazy since watching S3.
I hope you don't mind, but I'm friending you! I love your posts. =)
(no subject)
no subject
but what i've always loved about them, and the show, is that it's completely different from anything i've ever seen. all the clichés, all the things i thought i knew about tv, they're useless when it comes to DW.
they're not your regular couple. they're best friends and they're in love and they're connected. in every way possible. and i love how they're both the stars of the show. it isn't the Doctor and his sidekick., it's the Doctor and Rose. they're shown as different individuals who slowly find their way to being a team. and they're both equally important.
i especially agree about s3. in every other show i watch, when a character is killed off or otherwise leaves the show, he or she is mentioned once or twice, and then completely forgotten, as if they were never there,
one ,at the most, two episodes of some mourning and move on.
as a Rose fan, i was very nervous of not liking s3, that they wouldn't pay her the proper respect. and i was thrilled, as i watched, to find mentions,references, and homages to her all the time. i know for some people it was tirying (i do have non-rose fans, non-shippers on my flist) but for me it was fantastic. i would've hated it if they had just moved on. i don't know if i'd been able to watch.
i'm scared too, for s4, especially after an ep like TLOTL, but i do have faith in RTD&Co. they've created this relationship we all want and admire and they've done right by them. i have no choice but to trust them they can do it again. they broke my heart and i believe they can put it back together.
thank you for sharing this
Yeah. Know the feeling. In some ways, I didn’t start shipping them till after “Doomsday.” That’s how long it took me to grok the Doctor’s half of the story.
I started with “The Christmas Invasion” the day it aired, and by Epiphany I’d watched the first season four times. I came out of that marathon thinking two things: 1) Doctor Who was epic fantasy and 2) Rose was the heroine. (Honestly—the story that starts with a character leaving her ordinary world and entering the magical world of the story and ends with her becoming a goddess and saving the world. What else was I supposed to think?)
Rereading my review of season one, I think I did notice the Doctor’s journey—I just didn’t realize how important it was going to be to the story. And that’s what it comes down to, for me. It’s not the banter, or the chemistry, or the hand-holding, or even the Doctor telling Rose, “I could save the world but lose you.” I adored all of that, but I’m not sure I’d be willing to trust it. But seeing “Gridlock,” and thinking that the metaphors in this series ought to come with warning signs (watch out for falling anvils!)… well, all right, then.