vilakins | The Next Doctor

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The Next Doctor

I just watched the Christmas Special--and it really felt like one. :-D

I did enjoy that. It felt much more Christmassy than most specials, especially the rather nasty one last year with its predictably doomed ship and companion, many deaths, and offensive fat jokes which will prevent me ever watching it again. This one was fun: steampunk Doctor Who! So good it made up for it being Cybermen again.

Actually I think David Morrissey would have made a good Doctor, but I did guess who he was a bit before the Doctor did. I liked Jackson Lake and Rosita very much, and Dervla Kirwan (Dervla Kirwan, yay!) made a wonderful villain as Miss Hartigan. Someone said that Kirwan would play Servalan well, and she certainly could.

And what were those black hairy Cyberthings? I first thought they were dogs, then children, but they wouldn't have the strength to pull both men up the side of a building. I know! Were-Cybers!

Oh and the sonic screwdriver: hee! And extra points for hot-air balloons along with the steampunk. :-D

I thought Lake's son had been partially cybered at first when I saw him standing up there with staring eyes and spiky black (mascara'd?) lashes, but no: he seemed to be an ordinary child, if creepily silent. But then Victorians expected their children to be.

I loved the story, the Dickensian look, the steampunk, the Cyber King robotic ship, Miss Hartigan taking her revenge on all those stuffed-shirt Victorian men, and Jackson Lake being brave and tragic at once, but there were three things that concerned me:

If Miss Hartigan's mind was so brilliant and powerful, why was she reduced to being a screaming cliché when the connection between her mind and the Cybermen was severed? I can imagine her seeing what she had done and being appalled, then destroying the Cybermen herself, but just sitting there screaming with mindless horror?
Surely the Doctor's been thanked before. It was a nice moment seeing him hear the applause and cheers though.
So the brave and resourceful Rosita is just going to be a nursemaid now? Feh. I know that Jackson Lake would have been sexist and racist because his society was, but he had a lot of the Doctor's memories, and he'd seen Rosita's courage and strength. Why didn't the Doctor say something? :-( I hope Rosita turns that little offer down and does something more interesting. I know it would be very hard to do in those days, but she's capable of so much more.

That said, this is still the most fun Christmas special so far, with "The Runaway Bride" coming in second. :-)

And yeah, Dervla Kirwan for Servalan!

And now I'm off to bed.

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Surely the Doctor's been thanked before.
Planet of the Ood, dude! He has been sung down the ages for... being there at the point when the Ood Liberation Front freed the Ood! By comparison, a couple of Victorians shouting 'Bravo' is not even terribly special.

So the brave and resourceful Rosita is just going to be a nursemaid now?... Why didn't the Doctor say something?
Oh, I read that moment a bit differently, viz. Jackson Lake is too racist and sexist to realize immediately (as the Dr does, hence the little twinkle in his eye at that point - 'I could tell you, but I won't!') that he's actually going to marry Rosita; it'll take him a Rochesteresque while to realize that his governess is actually his True Person.

But I loved the episode too! All the strengths of Russell T, including some nice re-reflections on the themes that have characterized his time as head writer - the dr/companion relationship, memory loss, the way the Doctor doesn't kill people directly but gets women to sacrifice themselves instead (I thought the end, with the Dr pointing a shiny laser at Miss Hartigan and thereby getting her to sacrifice herself and destroy the Cybermen in the name of humanity, was a really nice, complicated take on that whole arc, which is why I don't mind your objection 1 as much as you do).

Why didn't the Doctor say something?
He didn't say anything, but I did think that the Doctor gave JL a speaking look about it.

:D I loved it too! And I agree, last year's was horrible and offensive and uk :( But this made up for it!

Totally agree with Dervla Kirwan for Servalan. I loved her, but I didn't like the way her character was dealt with...had a bit of a grumble about RTD's portrayal of women in my journal, lol. Intellectually brilliant women seem to equal evil in RTD's universe. 'Good' female characters are plucky, adventurous, and canny, but never cerebral, it seems, unless I'm having memory failure. New Who is full of she-Jamies, but precious few Romanas! They missed some potential there with Martha. If she was brainy, as all the advertising seemed to be implying, it was much underused :/

Maybe I was watching through Rosita-tinted spectacles, but I did hope that 'nursemaid' was basically a euphemism for 'Jackson's new wife', which she presumably couldn't be officially...nursemaid as far as society was concerned, but maybe they had a secret marriage and went off for adventures together in a hot air balloon :) I hope so!

Loved the steampunkiness of it!

There was definitely a Look of the 'yes dear, you'll work it out' variety.

Re female characters, so true, and somehow I'd never noticed how appropriate that was in a show about a time-travelling hero. *headdesks*

Yay! Others agree about Dervla Kirwin.

In my fanon she didn't sacrifice herself but made herself go to the parallel world, no matter what RTD decided to do with her.

The cyber-shades reminded me of links ;D I had great fun with the special though!

Heheh
http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/s4/misc/advent08/december_13

Oh, I read that moment a bit differently,

I read it much the same as you did. There's definitely a bit of "yeah, right.. nursemaid" about the Doctor's expression there, that I think it quite deliberate. For Jackson to have said anything else at that moment would have hit a jarringly hard-to-believe note for the time period, but I got the strong sense that we're supposed to come away with the impression that he's engaging in a bit of Victorian denial about what will doubtless be at the very least turn out to be a close companionship.

I'm actually a bit surprised to see so many people reading that as genuine racism, rather than as a subtle comment on that particular era's racism, but I suppose I shouldn't be.

For Jackson to have said anything else at that moment would have hit a jarringly hard-to-believe note for the time period

No harder to believe, IMO, than the suggestion that he would ever hire her to look after his child (not because of her race but because of her background). I think the problem is that either Lake is meant to be a typical Victorian or he isn't, and the script is not consistent. If he is a typical Victorian, he can voice all the class, gender and race prejudices of his time and it'd be nowt but realistic. But up to that point, he has actually been a most untypical Victorian. Not only is he quite unconscious of Rosita's race, he is indifferent to her background - according to the actress she is meant to be a former prostitute and Miss H's crack at her also suggests that. Yet our respectable Victorian gent is happliy going about with her, apparently unconcerned about what People May Think - a thing that preyed on the minds of most of his class and time. Also, btw, Victorians were quite paranoid about prostitutes being disease-carriers and didn't think them morally fit to look after their own children, let alone those of "respectable" folks. Lake's nursemaid suggestion is actually positively redical.

But if he is actually so liberal for his time, then it does raise the question of why he ever makes that remark....

See, I managed to miss any implications that she'd been a prostitute. I figured that a) people would expect that she was a servant accompanying him, and b) that he was caught up enough in the adventure and influenced enough by the Doctorish stuff in his brain not to be too concerned about what people would think for most of the episode, anyway. Making plans involving the rest of your life, though, is a bit different.

Anyway, the "nursemaid" thing really did sound to me very much like he was grasping for a justification to keep her around.

Oh, I read that moment a bit differently, viz. Jackson Lake is too racist and sexist to realize immediately (as the Dr does, hence the little twinkle in his eye at that point - 'I could tell you, but I won't!') that he's actually going to marry Rosita; it'll take him a Rochesteresque while to realize that his governess is actually his True Person.

Just what I was about to say. I did think that it was unfortunate that the otherwise excellent character of Rosita was slightly marred by RTD's Rose obsession - not only was her accent almosat identical but even her name was clearly Rose-inspired.

I thought it was a very enjoyable episode, showing off RTD's strengths and lacking most of his weaknesses (though I agree with point 1 in the original post). There was an interesting loose end at the finish - which RTD was clearly aware of, as it puzzled the Doctor - of why the Cyberman attack had seemingly been expunged from history afterwards.

The outfits of Rosita and Miss Hartigan were somewhat unrealistic for wearing outdoors on a snowy Christmas Day, but as a heterosexual male I can hardly complain. :)

I'm actually a bit surprised to see so many people reading that as genuine racism, rather than as a subtle comment on that particular era's racism, but I suppose I shouldn't be.

I thought it was more sexist than racist, as Victorians did have some respect for foreigners--esp those that stood up to them--but not really for women.

I suppose I don't cut RTD much slack after past offences.

See, I managed to miss any implications that she'd been a prostitute.

Oh blimey, so did I (and Greg)! RTD was strangely subtle if he intended to imply that. Was it the mention of her being on the docks (I think it was)?

Yet our respectable Victorian gent is happliy going about with her, apparently unconcerned about what People May Think

He was! I think a lot of that was the influence of being the Doctor, and I thought more of that might have stayed with him at the end; he seemed a lot more open-minded than usual. He was taking up a post at the university, wasn't he? That last remark just didn't seem in character for someone who had absorbed so much of the Doctor's wide experience.

I rather like the suggestion from someone that "nursemaid" was just going to be the public term.

I did think that it was unfortunate that the otherwise excellent character of Rosita was slightly marred by RTD's Rose obsession - not only was her accent almosat identical but even her name was clearly Rose-inspired.

Oh crap, I didn't pick that up. I said to Greg at the end, "That was good, at there wasn't any Rose!"

I did rather wonder about the whole incident being in history, but then it's a different universe from ours anyway with all those Christmas invasions. Or we're living in a more recently updated one. ;-)

I didn't notice. I'll have to look again. That would certainly make it a lot better.

hence the little twinkle in his eye at that point - 'I could tell you, but I won't!') that he's actually going to marry Rosita

Ah. I didn't notice that. I'll have to look again. That would certainly make it a lot better. :-) And yes, I think she is his True Person is he's open-minded enough ( and I think he could be) to see it.

I don't see RTD as being that thoughtful about his own work, but it's an interesting take. :-) On the whole, I did love the ep though. The sonic screwdriver: hee!

Very cool! Pity they won't let me play the vids though. Typical.

Ah, it was you! I couldn't remember who it was, but she really did have that touch of tempered steel about her. I've only seen Kirwan play more sympathetic roles--and always loved her characters. We need more of her on our screens.

Hartigan was capable of so much! And I don't blame her for her anger and bitterness either.

It did make up for last year! It left one feeling cheerful and entertained, not angry and with a nasty taste.

I shall have to read what you had to say, but you're right about RTD (and many other writers). He does like his woman to serve too, be trusty sidekicks rather than take leadership roles. I did love Donna so though and an still angry about what he did to her.

Actually there's a pervasive fear of intelligent people, and they're often portrayed as geeks, absent-minded comic relief, or evil geniuses. Brilliant woman only get to be the latter, it seems, and they're almost always feminised by the end. I remember being disgusted as a kid when I watched some comedy program that had a tough Russian woman general (would that they really had them) who ended up learning how much more fun it was to dress up and wear make-up. [headdesk] I like make-up, but wearing it doesn't change who I am, damn it. She went all fluffy and silly.

I like that idea, that they decided to explore Africa or South America (so many things still to do back then) in their hot-air TARDIS. I know he probably couldn't marry her, but I wish they'd just left that line out and the story more open.

Steampunk is always good. :-D

The only thing I didn't like was her enslaving children, but in a way I could understand that too, even though I couldn't forgive it.

I want to write her as still alive and enslaving chauvinistic men and not children!

Do it! :-)

It wasn't quite so bad making them work (her society did that then, and she ran a workhouse) but wanting to kill them afterwards? She also said she was sparing some of the men because they had children, but then killed them. She wasn't a sympathetic character at all, but I suppose I can see she'd have to be hard to run a workhouse, and I can certainly understand her anger. However that doesn't justify her actions.

It was Miss Hartigan's crack about how much Rosita was being paid. Which I took as an untrue insult, not a true statement.

Apparently the actor thought she was playing a prostitute but I much prefer your interpretation, esp as it wasn't specifically stated.

Corporations still enslave children, just not in parts of the world where it can be seen by consumers. I guess that's why it bugged me so much. I know the historical precedence.

I'm amazed that Rosita becoming a nursemaid was viewed as sexist and racist.
She and Jackson Lake had just shared an exciting adventure together and he didn't want to lose her, but he needed a perfectly respectable reason to keep her around and to see her. As his wife is dead, what better role could she fulfil as she is evidently not old enough to be a house keeper without people jumping to odious conclusions. In those days he couldn't just pop round and visit her as that would lead others to conclude she was his mistress.

In the Victorian society it was a perfectly logical solution and had nothing to do with her race and wasn't intended as being sexist.

Considering he found her at the docks which implies she was definitely of the lower waged and potentially illiterate too. Her being made nursemaid was a positively radical move as she'd hardly be considered "respectable" but JL treats her exactly if she was that too.

OK, maybe it's a step up for her, but I thought Lake would have absorbed a bit more of the Doctor's views. But apparently the Doctor gae him a Look which can be interpreted differnt ways.

I do think RTD's previous record makes people jumpy.

MY TUPPENCE.

Ummm - I thought the nursemaid thing was to locate him as a 'man of his time'. I need to watch it again to judge *hugs iplayer* but am willing to believe that there was a saucy wink-wink in the statement.

RTD likes women to die/sacrifice themselves - it's a trope! It made me chuckle when self-realisation came in the form of DAVROS in TSE... (flashback/excuses etc). But yes. Not so much racism - I didn't get that at all, we have had the Dr explaining to Martha in 16th century England that 'she wouldn't find it so different'. But sexism, definitely - which I took as a clue that the 'Doctor' was no Timelord but a Victorian.

Yeah but it's also a trope for SF writers to choose either past sexist societies (and not subvert them) or even make up sexist societies of the future as if it's oh so original. Even Farscape did that, and we know B7 did (when the egregious B Steed of the appropriate initials was writing).

I'm not sure that's a sf trope - that's just male writers *grin* - however, RTD's 'trope' of killing/having women jump out of spaceships shows real problems, I think...

Oh hell yeah. He has problems with women and mothers (and others like overweight people) yet he wants to be one with his MS Rose.

ROLL ON MOFFAT!

Um, apparently he's been pretty sexist in past interviews. But I've enjoyed the DW eps he's written, so he's sure to be better than Rusty.

I don't even understand the wank that destroyed Hartigan's mind. She was quite OK with the cyberman's plans before the conversion, why would it only be when she was exposed to the horror of a woman being in charge of the invasion that she dissolves into a screaming girl? Even when he "frees" her, all she does is breath heavily and flutter her eyelashes like her poor mind can't even grasp the concept. And even before that - what the fuck. Seriously, what - she rises up in the Cyber King, expects everyone to be grateful, cut to a scene of Tennant pulling a face instead of acting, and now she's all paranoid that everyone is against her? How exactly does the worthless humans running and screaming = a conspiracy against her by the powerless Victorian government?

The Doctor has been thanked in just about every episode RTD's ever written. How could anyone ever forget the insanity of the Fires of Pompeii shrine? That was the exact moment when I lost all faith in New Who.

To be honest, I thought the nursemaid thing was alright, because what else would she do? Surely it would be worse if she was all WHY YES, I'VE ONLY KNOWN YOU FOR LESS THAN THREE WEEKS, YOU WERE ACTING LIKE SOMEONE ELSE AND I ONLY FOUND OUT YOUR NAME AN HOUR AGO, YES I WILL MARRY YOU. It seems more realistic that he'd be like, "Oh, so I don't need a companion any more, I'll see you around." It would probably be extremely hard for her to get a job, considering the culture, or at least one above a kitchen maid that was never seen.

Oh, and I made my reaction post public (http://balcairn.livejournal.com/197052.html) if you were interesting in reading.

Ahaha, this is quite a long comment to someone I don't even 'know'. Sorry XD

Exactly! She deserved so much better than that. RTD's hopeless at plots that hold bricks let alone water, and as for his characters...

How could anyone ever forget the insanity of the Fires of Pompeii shrine?

[wince] I tried to and up till now, managed to. :-P

I didn't expect a proposal of marrriage (and that would have been just as insulting for reasons you give), but remaining friends would have been nice. There was a nice Doctor-memory-induced equality there before, and friendship is vastly underrated in fic and RL.

No probs; you expressed your opinions of the treatment of Hartigan (someone I found quite compelling as I understood why she was so angry and bitter, though not what she chose to do about it) much better than I did.

I shall go and look. :-)

Up until the Cyber King rose out of the Thames, she was shaping up to be quite a good character, even though apparently strong women can only be evil. Or be shaped by the Doctor for a series.

I tend to assume, because of the lovely fluffy happy Christmas overtones, that everyone ends up happily ever after in the specials.

apparently strong women can only be evil

A trope not just used by RTD. >:[]

Really? This one ended remarkably happily, which made me happy. In one though, the Doctor destroyed any chance of Britain's long golden age under Harriet Jones (a woman, come to think of it) by undermining her and driving her out of office in a fit of pique (thus ruining the joy of the previous ep she'd been in). In another, fat people were set up as targets for jokes, thousands died, and another blonde Mary Sue gave her all for the Doctor. This one therefore seemed to have much less of a bitter taste than the others. The Titanic one thoroughly disgusted me.

[looks at icon, one of Van's] You're a B7 fan? :-)

Previously I've thought the shoehorning of morals and family and happyhappy was enough to just glaze over any serious consideration of the episode... but, idk, after this mess, it's making me doubt everything else. (what set ups for fat jokes? I assume you mean the couple that got on the ship by a competition? But the only jokes were from The Bastard and his Rich Friends and then the Doctor bitch slaps them sonically and, everything's good? I mean, RTD isn't really in the position to call kettles black. XD)

Yeah, Van got me into it. XD Only seen the first series so far, though.

Really? RTD's big? That's odd because he pokes fun again in the adipose ep. And it seems I'm the only one who didn't find those creepy little things cute. (Not that I wouldn't mind a few leaving home.) But he doesn't seem to have sorted out his ideas about women vs having a female Mary Sue.

Van's good at pimping people in. :-)

Ahah, I just googled him to make sure, but.. ok, not so much so. I mean, he'd never be called 'thin', and isn't he like 6'5" or something? I always took it as more of a comradery thing, 'this is like what I suffered/this is what I'd like to happen'. And I'm sort of alarmed by people who think they are cute. Urgghh no.

I obeyed him pretty quickly, some how. XD But then again, it's pretty hard to go past Avon. XD

eta: Just found this (http://redplanetblog.typepad.com/fanboygeeks/images/2008/02/05/rtdbingosmall.jpg). LOL!

Yeah, just don't get it.

I'm a Vila girl myself, as you can no doubt tell. :-)

Just saw the link. Bwahahahaha! I'd have had a few sips last night.

And bloody hell, but I'm sick of London (or Cardiff pretending to be). I'd like a few more aliens and their planets too.

Yeah, I did notice that. XD

Ahaha, I fall for Cardiff's disguise every time. I don't know how I still manage to never recognise any buildings ever.

Yes, I thought that it was sexism rather than racism. If JL had been a racist, he wouldn't have wanted Rosita to be his son's nursemaid. (Wasn't the boy rather old to have a nursemaid? So maybe JL all along intended her to be something more.)

Yes, I loved JL's demonstration that it was sonic.

Yep. Even Edinburgh or Birmingham would make a nice change. Though to be fair, Series Four did get to alien planets far more than the earlier series did.

1. I didn't get Miss Hartigan's final panic at all.

2. But I agree with those who have said that Jackson Lake derived his belief that the Doctor was never thanked from the Cybermen not having videoed those scenes; they were usually dead at the time.

3. The Doctor did indeed give Jackson Lake an odd look after the nursemaid remark. I'd have put it in the "Yeah, you've just proved you're a 19th-century Englishman, not a Time Lord" category rather than the twinkly "You're going to marry her" category. I do think a romance between Jackson and Rosita was on the cards a few years down the line, but I'd have gone off Jackson in a big way if it had entered his head at that point, because he was supposed to be in shock over the death of a beloved wife. In the meantime, it was a way to get her into his house on an official basis, which would enable them to build up a relationship/teach each other how the other half lives/have thrilling adventures/bring up a child.

2. Good point!

3. I haven't gone back and seen The Look, and I didn't really notice it at the time because I was looking at Rosita and Lake, but I'll take your word for it. It sounds more in character for the Doctor. :-)

And I see you already have a Hartigan icon! It really was good to see Dervla Kirwan on screen again.

Yes! Poor, stereotyped geniuses. Admittedly I would like to see a really *good* female Bond villain. Not a bad Bond girl...a plain, emotionally crippled mad scientist who isn't in love with Bond even slightly. I do like M :D That comedy programme sounds painful. Like the song 'Georgie Girl', which drives me crazy for similar reasons.

I can't even remember what that comedy was--maybe it was a film--but I do remember an ancient American one about a single father and his three sons which I stopped watching at 10 when an intelligent little girl who liked one of them was advised to play dumb to be liked back. I shouted at the screen and wanted to throw things at it.

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The Next Doctor

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