Doctor Who: River Song & The Pandorica Opens

[beccatoria]

I LOVE HER MIND, I LOVE HER SHOES.


OMFG AWESOME.

I haven't really posted about this season of Doctor Who much, but I have been watching and enjoying it. I mean, no, not every episode in its entirety always. But...this feels like Doctor Who again, in a way the RTD era slowly lost, until it was some strange, hyper-coloured, melodramatic mess of empty calories where yelling stood in for character development and character development basically meant everyone dying or leaving so the Doctor can shed a single tear.

But this feels...like Doctor Who again. Except not. But sort of.

It feels like a fairytale. I love it. Amelia Pond, the girl with the fairytale name, stolen away by a mad man in a Blue Box on her wedding night; who helped the Queen save the last Star Whale in the universe, and survived an army of stone angels. A nightmare man comes to play games with her whole world, and she loves a boy who's not a boy - who's a roman, a robot, both.

"Does it bother you, Amy, that your life doesn't make sense?" It's in the delivery - so quiet - such a huge idea. It will take a lot to live up to it, next week, but I'm beginning to think that Moffat can do it. All his episodes feel a little like this - lost, whimsical, ideas from different universes stitched together in improbable cocktails of plot, that somehow hang together.

Doctor Who has a history of building things up in the first half of a two-parter finale and deflating horribly in the second. But I'm hopeful that this is not a curse Moffat will fall into.

It's a...relief to like this show again. Fairytale/myth/adventure story - it's the right tone to hit. The idea of the Doctor as a trickster, a myth, Merlin or whichever one your fairytale needs this week, is an idea that goes well back into the original series. Though perhaps I'm biased - the Doctor I loved best was the 7th Doctor.

His series, as I understand it, weren't really the most popular - weren't as happy or zany or crazy as Baker's. But they had the same feeling of thematics and myth. Ghostlight with all its evolutions, or Battlefield with its circles of salt to ward against evil and the Doctor as Merlin, or The Curse of Fenric - the first evil, the first game of chess, the betrayal of the mentor and the sins of the mother and RUSSIANS. I don't know. Those episodes always felt thoughtfully evocative of myth and idea in a way RTD's era never really was. But this one is beginning to. And if it's a scifi show rather than a bedtime story (a serious one, a funny one, an epic one, most importantly a never-ending one), this show becomes...another camp action procedural with funny costumes.

I suppose we'll see, next week.

There will be some kind of reboot and it will involve Amy and her house with too many rooms and her duck pond with no ducks, and I have no problem with that except I hope they don't reboot too much.

It makes me nervous, to start liking something this much. Don't let me down, dude.


So, I liked this episode so much I actually went looking for like, other reactions on LJ cus I was having a really slow day. Warning, I dislike RTD and his writing style. If you like it, fine, but I'm about to be snarky. Fair warning. :)

I do know that while there is a sizable Moffat following there's also a sizable RTD following. Which I guess always surprises me because I don't get how anyone could like it so much but then I remember that the 10th Doctor basically IS the embodiment of emo woobiness and that parts of fandom probably feel he is god's gift to fic.

What I don't really get is this emerging (and I concede that my investigations have been extremely haphazard, but I've seen this said in four or five places now, so I figure it must be A Thing?) argument that Moffat is good at plot-driven stories while RTD is good at character-driven ones?

And honestly, I have no idea what to do with that, I just can't see it.

I mean, I would agree that Moffat is very good at plot. And RTD used to rely on deus ex machina, coincidence or just plain DRAMATIC YELLING SLEIGHT OF HAND constantly. But the character thing, I really don't get.

I mean, I guess I sort of do? Because basically the entirety of the narrative point of many RTD episodes was to get to the point where the Doctor could have angst or make a righteous speech. I suppose that is character-based? Even if no other characters ever really get a look in because even the companions' ultimate fate will be to get left in various places/states in order to let the Doctor angst? But I'm not sure I'd call it development.

I suppose really, the real bit I don't get is the idea that Moffat isn't doing character development. I don't even have a way to coherently argue this point except to point at the entire show and go THERE, LOOK, LOOK AT IT.


OMG OMG OMG OMG.

Okay. So I have like, an actual, embarrassing problem, you guys. I think I ship her and the Doctor. TO THE POINT I GOT THIS ICON. *criez*

Cus like first of all, I have starting SHIPPING THEM LIKE IT'S HIGH SCHOOL, which is embarrassing in and of itself. But more than that, I generally DO NOT WANT when it comes to shipping the Doctor and people. I mean, even Rose, who I kind of, at least during the first season, at least sort of bought a "more important than your average companion" vibe about? I kind of put down to it being because the Doctor was all post-Gallifrey-exploding traumatised and imprinted on her, plus at one point, even if it was only for five minutes and never mentioned again, at one point she WAS the TARDIS and we know that the Doctor loves the TARDIS (ALTHOUGH, more on that later). So like, I could KIND OF see that if I squinted but even then I found it uncomfortable.

And the reason is that it's just so...icky because of the power imbalance? Because the companions come and go and are often young women and it makes the Doctor look like a sleazebag who picks up chicks far younger than him and impresses them with his flashy ride and worldly ways and then eventually ditches them.

It takes a lot to convince me that it's not better to have the Doctor in a mentor/friend/parental role. I have so much less of an issue with that narrative. Because then it's not that he uses and loses them (like, obvs not in terms of any particular episode, but the net effect, cumulatively, over time), but rather that he helps them grow, change, discover themselves, then move on to their own lives.

But with River, none of these issues really apply. I mean, okay, she's still far, far younger than him, and yes, there's still that power imbalance. But it doesn't play that way for a whole bunch of reasons. River has her own life and doesn't always travel with the Doctor, and she's secure and confident around him and can hold her own in a way that many companions can't, so the power imbalance or the dependency on him for having an exciting, adventurous life isn't there to be squicky.

It also helps that they cast Alex Kingston, who is GORGEOUS (especially in jail, seriously, it was like I blinked and she got HOT LIKE BURNING), but also over 45. A drop in the bucket compared to the Doctor (hell, she could be several hundred a la Liz Ten and it'd still be a drop in the bucket), but the narrative effect for us is to present her as a confident, older woman, entertainingly at odds with the Doctor's current, twenty-something appearance.

I also like it because I feel it kind of...takes the pressure off of the whole Doctor/Companion thing, even though, as I'm about to get to, I don't actually have ANY stress whatsoever about when/if the series ever gets to the part of the Doctor/River storyline that involves actual romance, instead of the Doctor still not knowing who she is, exactly, entirely.

And in the meantime, screw it, they can screw whoever they want (not that they will cus it's a kids show on the BBC, and they don't make them like they used to <-- NSFW).

I just love that it's out there - that it'll happen some day.

I love how important it makes River, but how it manages to make her important because of a romantic storyline, without defining her entire character by it, or perhaps more importantly, by putting her, at the moment, firmly in charge of it. SHE knows what's going on, but he doesn't.

And I am flat out charmed by the way they meet all out of order. I know that they're not the first story to do it. Even aside from the *cough*TimeTravelersWife*cough* there's the Book of the New Sun stuff by Gene Wolfe which I never finished, but I know apparently has a killer rendition of this theme.

But...I love it anyway. Half of it is, I think, the way the actress sells is, and the fact it's well written more than the super awesome idea in the first place. But there's something epic and moving about the fact that the first time he meets her is the last time she meets him - the moment she dies (well, sort of, and trust me, I want her to download her brain into a robot body or some shit, but I can handle it if she never does because: FAIRYTALE SYMMETRY). But also, it's heavily implied that she kills him, someday, at some point, for some really good reason that tears her up inside. (Okay, it might not be him, and it might only be one of his incarnations, but...for symmetry, I think it's cooler if she really kills him - even if part of him survives, as part of her survives, and it's the end of a chapter, not the book).

Plus I just love her as a character. She is just So. Damn. Awesome.

She's competent and funny and challenging and intelligent and unapologetic about all of the above. She's a brilliant archeologist who knows how to break out of jail and how to make her husband heel. She flirts and teases, but it's clear, in every episode, that she cares, whether it's about Miss Evangelista, who everyone made fun of, getting respect in her final moments, or making damn sure the Doctor is safe, and respected, and has the space to save everyone the way she knows he can.

She balances faith in the Doctor with never, ever sitting around to be rescued.

I also have huge, HUGE, love for the fact that at the end of the episode, when she's trying to get out of the TARDIS she doesn't fail. That moment when she gets the doors open, but there's just this wall of rock - GUH.

So yeah, River Song. She graffities the oldest cliff face in the universe, and she calls him "Sweetie." WHAT IS NOT TO LOVE? She's like a glorious mixture of Indiana Jones, Laura Roslin and Sydney Bristow.

I hope Alex Kingston agrees to guest star FOREVER. Why doesn't SHE have a spinoff?


Again, I do not know how prevalent these feelings are as I only know what I know of Who fandom from an afternoon of surfing who_daily, but again, these are opinions I did not see like, everyone expressing? But I did see a fair amount. Like even more than the RTD-character vs Moffat-plot notion. And it made me all ::sadface::

And that's the fact that apparently there are quite a lot of people out there who don't like her? Who think she's smug? And rubs her specialness in people's faces?

Ugh.

If she was a boy, the number of people thinking this would be SO MUCH FEWER. In fact, if it were Captain Jack who broke out of prison to help save the universe, with his So Special Can't Die Schtick, people would be eating that up with a spoon.

She's confident, but she explains things to people far more than the Doctor. The only time she's ever does anything that could be called smug is in relation to the Doctor when it's very clearly part of an ongoing patter of banter. And I don't know how anyone can fail to see the obvious love and trust and respect she has for the guy. I mean, she spends MORE THAN ONE SCENE in her introductory pair of episodes obviously so devastated that he doesn't remember her, and so confused that this Doctor isn't the one she knows and recognises, and like...talking about the one she does with such reverence. (And again, it is props to the writer and the actress that this never comes across as simpering, as needing validation from him, but rather as honest emotion - as someone who loves him.)

Apparently though, she rubs her specialness in our face or something. I don't know, because she's good at her job, I guess. Or because, shock of shocks, the Doctor at one point teaches her to fly the TARDIS and she teases him about it a little. She's too good at stuff! Nevermind that the first episodes she's in is the story of how she dies saving everyone because they miscalculated by going there in the first place. Or how the next episodes are framed by the fact she's in jail, trying to earn a pardon for doing something that is obviously emotionally difficult for her. I don't want to say trying to atone because that implies a judgement about what and why she did what she did, but there's something there, you know? She's not exactly skipping across the Universe, smugly. She's trying to earn a pardon.

And every time she pulls something "smug", like landing the TARDIS, the Doctor usually responds with something impressive in kind. Seriously, I don't get it.

But whatever, I'll just have to love her twice as much and hope Moffat ignores this part of fandom.


So, one thing that I was surprised didn't see more discussion was River's final line in the episode, which essentially, as far as I'm concerned, really cements and confirms that she's his wife (or space-equivalent). I mean, sure, there's room to come up with some other retcon, but at this point, that line means the chain's been jerked so far that pretty much ANY other explanation is bound to be a disappointment? At least to me, though I grant I'm not unbiased.

But basically, I think Occam's Razor applies at this point.

STILL, I have seen an amusing amount of speculation on the internets about who she is, like...there are definitely a lot of people who I think just assume she's his wife (as I do at this point, though I was wary of doing so at first) and move on.

But I've seen...so many weird pieces of speculation about:

- her really being the TARDIS from the future (Whut? I mean...why would she then become an archeologist. The Doctor said he told her his name. Plus then, I know the Doctor loves the TARDIS, but this ends up being like...he married his car, or...the sexy AI program that voices his car...or something. Too many things they say require "from a certain point of view" interpretation for that to ever fly).

- her being the Doctor's daughter or other relative (which makes the "sweetie" stuff supercreepy and again...really only meshes with the rest of their banter and chat in the vaguest way).

- her being some other Time Lord or something (acceptable to me, though I don't feel the need to have her be anything other than human and I'd prefer she stay that way, but equally, what does that have to do with whether or not she's his wife?)

- not really a theory on who she is, but I've seen at least three people wondering if she was saying, "I'm sorry, my love," to the TARDIS. Which like, okay, I liked that she was talking to it too, and yes, I know that the Doctor (and perhaps even River) loves it. And she probably really is sorry that it's blowing up. But, um, way to deflate a dramatic line.

So like...that wasn't intended exactly as bitching, cus people can believe this stuff and that's fine, I just...don't get it? Like, is there a real strong set of opinion that is against River being the Doctor's wife? And if so, I wonder if that subsection of fandom is more from the "no romance for the Doctor!" school or the "Doctor/Companion" school, or the "I don't like River" school, or if there's no pattern at all?

/RANDOM. Done now.


My foray into Whodom also told me that EVERYONE AND THEIR MUM loves Rory. I feel like a bad person in that I do not. I mean, he's sweet and I like him okay and I believe Amy loves him. I also believe he'll never start wanting to adventure in the TARDIS (at least as RORY rather than Auton!Roman!Rory) and Amy will never want to live in Leadworth. And he does the tear-your-heart-out cus he's dying, or turning into a THING sooo well that I ended up really liking his role in this, but when I thought he had really come back, I was...not a fan. It felt cheap, and unnecessary, and really, I just...I worry that he's supposed to represent the idea that Amy needs to grow up rather than find her childhood self again.

Her life doesn't make sense, but it did, once.


Again, I wouldn't mention this except I saw it in some website (not LJ) review saying that they like the "crafty hint" that the visions of the TARDIS exploding had a hand in Van Gogh's suicide. I just wanted to say I...really don't like that interpretation.

The Van Gogh episode was surprisingly emotionally affecting and one of the things that made it so was that he didn't get magically "fixed". He is so affected and overjoyed by seeing that he achieved something, that his work matters. But ultimately...he still dies. He still kills himself. I thought that was quite a brave thing to show - that depression doesn't magically go away. That it's serious. And I know the entire episode posited him as weirdly psychic, but they managed to concurrently treat depression a great deal more seriously than the media usually does. It managed to avoid that negative stereotype that people should just Snap Out Of It. It wasn't enough; they couldn't fix him with one magic trip on a good day.

To suddenly suggest that maybe they DID fix him, it's just then he had a violent psychic vision is...not something I would like. Perhaps especially because the original Van Gogh episode had the mental health advice line at the end of it suggesting they were really trying to deal with that issue seriously.

So. All in all. RIVER SONG. RIVER SONG. RIVER SONG. STARTING TO ACTUALLY BELIEVE NEXT WEEK'S FINALE MIGHT BE AWESOME. AND RIVER SONG.

Comments

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

OMG SOMEONE WHO DOESN'T LIKE RORY! I also agree he was in all the boring episodes, though I think that was the mid-season slump and poorer writers more than his character. But still. BORING!

VAN GOCH. :D

[coffeejunkii.livejournal.com]

i firmly believe that rory's presence contributed to the boringness of those eps! he also disturbs the quirkiness of the doctor's and amy's relationship because he makes amy less focused on the awesomeness that is travelling with the doctor and more focused on the blah-blah of their relationship.