Journey's End en repete

[timepiececlock]

I keep rewatching The Scene of Doctor Who 4x13.

The parts that I've already said don't work for me, still don't work for me. But the parts that I was okay with I totally love now.

Except a corner of my brain still keeps backing up and saying "Wait, is that really how it ended? This isn't some crazy late-night-cranberry-juice-induced dream of how your inner psychopathic fangirl heart would have ended it?"

I mean... THERE ARE TWO DOCTORS, and one will grow old and can LIVE A LIFE and MAKE OUT ON THE BEACH with Rose. I just...!!!! That's so whacked! A day later, and it's still totally whacked!


It's pretty much a happy ending ticket that I never in a million years thought we'd get. And it wasn't happy precisely--actually it was quite heartbreaking-- but the ingredients are there to have a kind of happy ending. Like, a fanfic happy ending.

But I hate to say "fanfic ending" because that's usually used in a derrogatory way. And I don't mean it in a bad way... I just mean it's like fanfic because it's whacked and it's over the top and it's impossible and I never ever expected it to HAPPEN. On my TV. Or, on my monitor, actually.

I think this can only happen on crazy sci-fi shows. Doctor Who and Farscape: crazy fun angsty romantic whacked out sci-fi space shows. Except DW's use of the trope is even more crazy and fanficcy because Farscape spend more than a season addressing the "twinning" and its aftermath, whereas DW crammed it into one episode. The biggest finale episode ever.


So... I've decided: I love the finale. I LOVE THE FINALE. It has problems, and it makes me angry and sad, but it also made me giggle a lot. And the truth is that if the episode has such a wide variety of responses and discussion that I've come across the last two days, then it was a damn good episode for a finale.

It left an impression, no doubt. ...It's so whacked.

Comments

[scarlettfish.livejournal.com]

I know. I never thought the Doctor and Rose would be in a position to do things like get married, have children, and grow old together. AND THEY ARE. Kinda! It's mind-blowing.

I'm still trying to sort out how I feel but I keep coming back to the fact that it's really the happiest possible ending we could have got: Billie was obviously not coming back to the series full-time, but Rose still gets to be with the Doctor forever! And at the same time, it's also completely tragic and heartbreaking.

Yes, I agree with whacked!

[goldy-dollar.livejournal.com]

I mean... THERE ARE TWO DOCTORS, and one will grow old and can LIVE A LIFE and MAKE OUT ON THE BEACH with Rose. I just...!!!! That's so whacked! A day later, and it's still totally whacked!

BWAH. Yeah, that was totally my initial reaction, I think. I'm feeling a bit more devastated about it all now, but it does feel a bit like RTD found the wackiest fanfic he could and then made it even MORE crazy before sticking it in his show.

It's weird. The two John Crichton thing on Farscape made me feel very icked out, but having two Tens doesn't. Though I'd say Farscape handled the emotional repercussions much, much better.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

It is really, really like fanfic. But in a good way. It manages to give you the squee of delight that you never, ever expected to get, and yet when you look at it from various angles it's also bittersweet and devastating.

And it's such a change from the Jossverse. I know all my fannish issues stem from there, but, just, I got resigned to never getting anything I want from a story. And here I actually got something I wanted SO BADLY. Rose and the Doctor! Together! They kiss! And I get the joy of that but it's not cheesy, because they've got a ton of issues to work through and because our Doctor is left alone and heartbroken.

I LOVE YOU RUSSELL T DAVIES.

Some addition JE thoughts: genocide blame and 10 vs. 10.5

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

spikewriter: But having gone there, it is not out of character that the Doctor would decide this is what needs to be done. And Human!Doctor is more like Nine in some ways -- and definitely dangerous. This man could have, I think, possibly touched those wires together that Four refused to, stopping Davros' creation at their very beginning.

After denying Rose a choice, this is actually the thing that frustrated me the most about the episode. And, unlike manipulating Rose's departure, which at least was explainable as in-character for him, this whole genocide-blame-fixhim scenario just doesn't make sense to me. I can't work it out. Because I've been made to believe over season 2 and 3 that Ten1 is every bit as likely to touch the wires together or do what needs to be done. I cannot honestly say to myself out loud "If 10 had been outside and 10.5 had been inside, 10 would not have committed genocide on the Daleks right there where he had the chance to be sure." I think he absolutely would have, so the whole "I'm not as angry and you need fixing" thing just seems hypocritical to me.

Maybe hypocritical's not the word...just some understanding would be better? Maybe a little less sanctimonious judging? I just feel it was circumstances of chance (or writer's license) that meant one Doctor was inside while the other was outside. And if they are the same except for maybe two or three hours of time (between when the Doctor put his energy in the hand and when Doctor&Donna showed up for an aborted rescue), then I don't see how there's any substantial difference in how one Doctor would handle the problem versus the other... after all, BlueDoctor didn't regenerate as a whole new Doctor, he regenerated as Ten with a Donna imprinting. If they'd been separated by episodes worth of adventures, and we'd been able to see actual changed in cahracter, that's one thing. But I'm not connvinced that there was anything 10.5 did that 10 wouldn't have done.

It makes me hard to figure out the "You were of anger and are reverting back to how I was three years ago! Except that you have all my memories of Rose and Martha and Donna making me a better person, so really you're not like Nine at all... except that you are! Because I say you must be! And you need to be fixed!"

I just looked at that with my eyebrows up to my hairline and thought, "What, like YOU wouldn't have done it? Oh please. Ring the other one, it has bells on."

I think that the Time War permanently changed the Doctor, and that whatever his future incarnations, he is now and forever will be capable of genocide, if he thinks (as in the case of Journey's End) that it will eliminate the threat and no one else will be harmed.

Eight already it, in the Time War. Which led to Nine being born out of anger and blood and fear. The only reason that Nine didn't was that he refused to commit genocide against the humans just to get to the Daleks, since it hadn't made anything better when he did it to the Time Lords and the Daleks. But if the humans hadn't been at risk, he would have. Ten threatened to do as much or worse to the aliens 2x03 in the school. And now we have Ten.5, who "thinks the same, feels the same" as Ten, and he did it too, without even the angst and deliberation Nine went through. That tells me that Ten is totally capable of it, even tomorrow or next season. So will be Eleven, and Twelve, and Thirteen. He may get "better" because of companions like Rose and Martha and Donna, but he won't ever get "better" to the point where he's incapable of genocide again.