Quick Utopia Reaction
Jun. 17th, 2007 08:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jadesfire[I'm typing quickly before heading out to church, so I make no promises about sequence of thought or lack of typos]
I had a slightly different reaction to Utopia from most people...
I've just had a scan through people's responses to Utopia, which seem to boil down to "Meh. But Jack!yay!" For me, despite the mega-truck-sized plot holes and the awful, awful future kind (why haven't more people mentioned them? Oh good grief, "show me your teeth?" Please), it wasn't that bad.
Yes, I felt really, really bad for Jack, was really cross at Ten and had complete "oh, Martha" moments when they were talking about Rose ("Oh, she was blonde" was priceless - great line). But this is what I was supposed to feel. We were supposed to be reminded that Ten isn't human and isn't, actually, very nice.
I've been remembering an interview with Sylvester McCoy (Seven, for those of you too young to remember...) who said they set out to restore some of the Doctor's mystery. They did this by dropping plot hints and by having him be not quite as 'normal' as the other Doctors. RTD has been doing it by really and truly making the Doctor alien in every way. It's as though losing Rose has made him feel his 'lastness' even more, and it's making him hard and cavelier with people's feelings, which is something we don't want the Doctor to be. We want to like him, we want to feel he could be our friend. We don't want to be scared by him and we don't want him to say things we don't like.
But he does. In some ways, in Utopia, I felt as much pity for the Doctor as I did for Jack - he always loses people, always. I don't know that I read his explanation to Jack as a metaphor of any kind, more that they need an explanation and this is one that will cause the greatest emotional reaction. If it had been "well, I was kind of busy regenerating, and so I didn't know" we would have been sympathetic, waited for Jack to kiss the Doctor and all to be well with the world. Instead, they've chosen a much harder route, to create greater friction between them. The banter, the sniping, Jack's pain; none of them would have worked as well if the Doctor had just been "oh, for heaven's sake, I said I was sorry!". So from a writing point of view, it makes sense. You're always going to choose the option that gives you the most drama.
Plus, I loved Jack calling the Doctor on it: "You're prejudiced". Go Jack.
Yes, he was reduced to tech-boy again, but that's inevitable - when he's back in TW, he gets the limelight again, but it's the Doctor's show, not Jack's, so for now he'll just have to go on electrocuting himself in a good cause. Oh, and the Doctor cleaning his glasses while he waits for Jack to wake up after that? Brilliant.
Okay, so that ended up waaaaaay longer than I'd intended - one of the perils of having a typing speed that can keep up with your brain - and it's only about half of it. John Simm was wonderful - madly, manically brilliant, and I loved "Chan tho". A genuinely original idea for an alien. I may have to sit down. The effects were great, mostly, and although the "stop it" scenes felt a little forced, they were still fun.
My wishes for the next episode include more Jack & Martha banter, cos they're great together; lots more John Simm, who was awesome; and the Doctor and Jack managing to come to terms with each other. Okay, so the last one's just wishful thinking, but a girl can dream, can't she?
Just no-one talk to me about the future kind, unless you want another rant this long about painful plot devices and pathetic ideas for 'aliens'.
I had a slightly different reaction to Utopia from most people...
I've just had a scan through people's responses to Utopia, which seem to boil down to "Meh. But Jack!yay!" For me, despite the mega-truck-sized plot holes and the awful, awful future kind (why haven't more people mentioned them? Oh good grief, "show me your teeth?" Please), it wasn't that bad.
Yes, I felt really, really bad for Jack, was really cross at Ten and had complete "oh, Martha" moments when they were talking about Rose ("Oh, she was blonde" was priceless - great line). But this is what I was supposed to feel. We were supposed to be reminded that Ten isn't human and isn't, actually, very nice.
I've been remembering an interview with Sylvester McCoy (Seven, for those of you too young to remember...) who said they set out to restore some of the Doctor's mystery. They did this by dropping plot hints and by having him be not quite as 'normal' as the other Doctors. RTD has been doing it by really and truly making the Doctor alien in every way. It's as though losing Rose has made him feel his 'lastness' even more, and it's making him hard and cavelier with people's feelings, which is something we don't want the Doctor to be. We want to like him, we want to feel he could be our friend. We don't want to be scared by him and we don't want him to say things we don't like.
But he does. In some ways, in Utopia, I felt as much pity for the Doctor as I did for Jack - he always loses people, always. I don't know that I read his explanation to Jack as a metaphor of any kind, more that they need an explanation and this is one that will cause the greatest emotional reaction. If it had been "well, I was kind of busy regenerating, and so I didn't know" we would have been sympathetic, waited for Jack to kiss the Doctor and all to be well with the world. Instead, they've chosen a much harder route, to create greater friction between them. The banter, the sniping, Jack's pain; none of them would have worked as well if the Doctor had just been "oh, for heaven's sake, I said I was sorry!". So from a writing point of view, it makes sense. You're always going to choose the option that gives you the most drama.
Plus, I loved Jack calling the Doctor on it: "You're prejudiced". Go Jack.
Yes, he was reduced to tech-boy again, but that's inevitable - when he's back in TW, he gets the limelight again, but it's the Doctor's show, not Jack's, so for now he'll just have to go on electrocuting himself in a good cause. Oh, and the Doctor cleaning his glasses while he waits for Jack to wake up after that? Brilliant.
Okay, so that ended up waaaaaay longer than I'd intended - one of the perils of having a typing speed that can keep up with your brain - and it's only about half of it. John Simm was wonderful - madly, manically brilliant, and I loved "Chan tho". A genuinely original idea for an alien. I may have to sit down. The effects were great, mostly, and although the "stop it" scenes felt a little forced, they were still fun.
My wishes for the next episode include more Jack & Martha banter, cos they're great together; lots more John Simm, who was awesome; and the Doctor and Jack managing to come to terms with each other. Okay, so the last one's just wishful thinking, but a girl can dream, can't she?
Just no-one talk to me about the future kind, unless you want another rant this long about painful plot devices and pathetic ideas for 'aliens'.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-17 07:37 am (UTC)