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Toxxupation posted:I'll finally understand what makes the internet so obsessed with this goddamn thing for literally almost a decade The only problem with it is that it's one of those things that has so saturated nerd culture that you're not going to get the full impact. But that was a hell of a preview.
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Sep 25, 2014 00:51
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Random Stranger posted:The only problem with it is that it's one of those things that has so saturated nerd culture that you're not going to get the full impact. But that was a hell of a preview. He might legitimately know nothing about it. I mean other than that one "catch phrase" we'll be picking up. Ugh.
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Sep 25, 2014 01:01
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ikanreed posted:He might legitimately know nothing about it. I mean other than that one "catch phrase" we'll be picking up. Ugh. Confirming that he legitimately doesn't, and there will be legitimately horrible consequences for anyone who breaks this state of affairs. Also, for whoever was asking for the Doctor's deleted scene in Human Nature earlier, here it is.
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Sep 25, 2014 01:02
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ikanreed posted:He might legitimately know nothing about it. I mean other than that one "catch phrase" we'll be picking up. Ugh. i guess this is as good a post as any for  I'M DOIN A THINGso people who read my old LMS review thread know that I did livewatches from time to time, they were real popular and i thought about bringin it back for who but i wanted it to be for an episode that was worth it in retrospect we coulda did it for Love and Monsters but then on the other hand me and oxx watchin it by ourselves was actually p enjoyable closed off from anyone else anyways i'm getting off the point! I'm organizin a livewatch for series 3 episode 10 of Doctor Who, "Blink", for this Friday, 6 pm PST/ 9 pm EST here's how this works: 1) go here on friday, this is the tviv irc channel 2) have a way to watch the show (it's on DVD and netflix but you're all DW fans so you already knew that!) 3) preload it (this is important, you don't want to get desynced), then at 6 ill count down in irc and we'll all watch it at once, we'll all have a great time anyways yeah, Friday at again 6 pm PST/9 pm EST, if this time doesn't work let me know and ill change it you should come because apparently this episode is real good and youll probably enjoy rewatching it? i dunno, never seen it (real fact about me: ive navigated the internet for a decade and a half and literally the only thing i know about blink is that it stars weeping angels as bad guys, so i kinda feel like a unicorn almost?) but yeah it should be fun! y'all should come
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Sep 25, 2014 01:11
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I have to choose between this and playing the new Zelda game nonstop!?!? You drive a hard bargain but I'll be there.
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Sep 25, 2014 01:13
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Is Blink really the omnipresent phenomenon you're all making it out to be? I don't think I've ever heard anyone refer to it since it aired, unless they were asked like "what's a good Doctor Who episode" or something.
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Sep 25, 2014 01:19
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Oxxidation posted:Here, let's compare Martha and Rose, since the show itself can't seem to shut up about the latter. Rose complained about being a lunch lady for two days, remember that? Martha successfully integrated as a segregated citizen for two months without a single untoward roll of the eye (that anyone could see), and kept an eye out for danger the whole time, evading the Family and nearly jogging Mr. Smith's memory before everything went to hell. Rose was either a hanger-on or a liability for over half her run. For nearly every one of Martha's episodes, the Doctor's success hinged on her assistance, the only exception I can think of so far being "Gridlock" (and even then her captor's skulls would've been ventilated if their gun hadn't been a prop). Martha's even-tempered, whip-smart, competent without being prideful; when there's a job that needs done, she knuckles the gently caress under and does it, and woe betide anyone who gets in her way, even if that person's currently wearing the Doctor's face. I'll raise a goddman toast this because I had never thought about it but holy poo poo you're right. Goddamn Martha has gotten the short shift this series.
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Sep 25, 2014 01:21
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Tempo 119 posted:Is Blink really the omnipresent phenomenon you're all making it out to be? I don't think I've ever heard anyone refer to it since it aired, unless they were asked like "what's a good Doctor Who episode" or something. Eh yes and no. It was, for like 3 years after it was introduced, held up as "THE Doctor Who episode to convert a new fan," and it did spawn a lot of memes in the fandom. I can't say anymore because of spoilers obviously, but the bottom line is yeah, for a while this episode cast a pretty big shadow over the series as a whole.
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Sep 25, 2014 01:22
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Tempo 119 posted:Is Blink really the omnipresent phenomenon you're all making it out to be? I don't think I've ever heard anyone refer to it since it aired, unless they were asked like "what's a good Doctor Who episode" or something. It is yes. Especially in the sense that it's the one idiots most frequently recommend as the first one to watch to sell you on Doctor Who.
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Sep 25, 2014 01:24
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Regy Rusty posted:It is yes. Especially in the sense that it's the one idiots most frequently recommend as the first one to watch to sell you on Doctor Who. Well it's a better entry point than Rose. Toxxupation's Rose Review posted:I hated nearly all of it.
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Sep 25, 2014 01:27
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thexerox123 posted:Well it's a better entry point than Rose. I don't disagree but there are better options. I have a lot of thoughts on this subject that I will share in the future!
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Sep 25, 2014 01:28
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Human Nature/Family of Blood are the only episodes of Doctor Who I've actually sat down and given my full attention to. The only thing I liked about it was Martha. I've half watched a bunch of episodes of Doctor Who since then and I still have no desire to watch any more of it. I'll probably join in on the Blink livewatch though and maybe finally understand why everyone loves it so much.
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Sep 25, 2014 01:30
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Toxxupation posted:
That's pretty much how I watched it, since I didn't start until the revival had been on for a few years. So I was hyped for this one as well, but fortunately I didn't know anything other than the basic description of the angels and their powers. And that's about all I can say.
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Sep 25, 2014 01:37
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The second half of season 3 is why I disagree with the flak it gets. I mean yeah, most of the first half is awful-to-mediocre, but the second half is great.
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Sep 25, 2014 01:51
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Tempo 119 posted:Is Blink really the omnipresent phenomenon you're all making it out to be? I don't think I've ever heard anyone refer to it since it aired, unless they were asked like "what's a good Doctor Who episode" or something. In the sense that some people can't stop referencing it, pointing it out, talking about it, and so on. I mean, if you're a normal human being who'd never see Doctor Who you'd probably never encounter it, but nerds on the Internet mean that pretty much anyone who is going to sit down and watch it has at least some knowledge of it.
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Sep 25, 2014 02:03
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Blink is The French Mistake of Doctor Who in that it's very good as an episode but it's not something you want to show to new viewers.
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Sep 25, 2014 02:06
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Toxxupation posted:livewatch This will be amazing regardless of grade. Gonna ask something you might not answer but it's gonna bug me if I don't at least ask: The expectation/reality difference is going to be where the money shot is for the vast majority of the thread, I'm sure, so let's get the 'expectation' part out in the open. What are you expecting the Weeping Angels to do/be?
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Sep 25, 2014 02:12
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computer parts posted:Blink is The French Mistake of Doctor Who in that it's very good as an episode but it's not something you want to show to new viewers. I don't know, I showed it to my dad and it seemed to work. I have thoughts on why, but it'll have to wait until afterwards. His first question was "are the angels connected to the dale-eks?"
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Sep 25, 2014 02:14
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I never heard of blink before watching doctor who but I also tune out everything every doctor who fan says because youre all insufferable cunts who never shut the gently caress up about your stupid space man show..... Fuckers. But, uh, yeah. Blink is pretty cool. I wouldn't livewatch it though. It's not the same type of great that Love and Monster is where that would have been fun, Blink is more this really solid scifi story that could have come from any classic show. Deserves to be watched normally instead of half assed trying to also keep up with chat.
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Sep 25, 2014 02:18
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Cool, Blink is getting it's own special event! In the meantime, could we stop talking about Blink?
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Sep 25, 2014 02:23
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Doctor Who "The Family of Blood" Series 3, Episode 9 Doctor Who, as an operating credo, never really has good villains. I mean, sure, they plan to destroy the world, and they're at least sufficiently threatening, but that's...kinda...it. As a generalized set, if we were to label Doctor Who villains as a whole, the word we would use would be "Unmemorable". This is partly from the way Doctor Who is constructed. Villains exist, always, to get chumped by The Doctor, so in some way they always, always have to be inferior to him. And because The Doctor isn't physically imposing and the villains in most Doctor Who stories always have either superior firepower, superior forces, or both, what it usually ends up meaning is that the villains are always intellectually inferior in some way. They stand around like idiots as The Doctor yammers away, eating up time until his Grand Plan comes to fruition. As a result, all previous in The Doctor's pantheon are similarly ill-defined, similarly megalomaniacal and evil (to establish that they are a credible threat to be taken seriously), and similarly flat. The only real exception to this rule, thus far, that we've seen is the Daleks, and that's more because of what they represented over what they actually were. The Daleks, as individual characters, have never been dynamic or interesting- literally, by design they can't be -but even that aside we have the issue that Daleks look silly and stupid and always will so they're hard to get invested in in any way that isn't intellectual. So it's really crazy how great the titular Family of Blood is. Each of them- Mother of Mine, Father of Mine, Son of Mine, and Daughter of Mine -is great in their own specific way, but Harry Lloyd is the clear star. As Son of Mine, Lloyd is so fantastically, deliciously evil, is having such obvious fun with the character that he nearly steals the show out from everyone else, and that includes both Tennant and Agyeman. Lloyd plays a possessed human to the hilt- he clearly understands that he's meant to be playing an alien who has a tenuously understood and altogether incomplete grasp of how humanity, er, "works", and he plays Baines qua Son of Mine with all the creepy arrogance he can muster. He creates a character, with his odd, rushed lines, his weird. Stilted. Speech patterns., his unblinking gaze, and his general complete contempt for humanity and humans, that is an absolute joy to watch and creates a dynamic, interesting villain in a way that previous episodes of Doctor Who never could. Previous villains were obsessed with enslaving/destroying humanity; in contrast, Son of Mine revels in tormenting humanity; his confrontation with Headmaster Rocastle only seeming to serve as a way for Son of Mine to impress upon Rocastle how stupid and flawed he, and the rest of humanity in general, is. Son of Mine's monologue on the encroaching World War I is especially poignant, and he somehow makes a genuinely fair point: "War is coming. In foreign fields, war of the whole wide world with all your boys falling down in the mud. Do you think. They will thank. The man who taught them it was glorious?" It's funny, too, because it's clear that Son of Mine has no real dog in that hunt; he couldn't possibly care less that the human race will soon be embroiled in a war so incomprehensibly large it would End All Wars. Son of Mine has no ideological reservations about the Headmaster's actions; Son is right (about the innate horror of creating child soldiers), but only in the empirical sense. He only says what he says because he knows it will create guilt and doubt in the Headmaster when previously there was nothing but the sure-footed dogma in his cause, and that scene is what elevates Son of Mine, and the Family of Blood as a whole, above every other villain that came before them. They're characters, first and foremost; they have motivations and desires beyond "destroy everything", and they act in ways that dimensionalize them and give them player agency even as the villain. Daughter of Mine's cold, ruthless murder of the headmaster in front of his students, while cruelly mocking the school boys, daring them to shoot a little girl is another example of this: they're villains who act beyond a straightforward pursuit of their goals, and that's what makes them remarkable. It's good, too, that the villains are so uncharacteristically great this time around, because the episode places them front-and-center for most of it. The cliffhanger actually resolves decently- with Martha, not The Doctor, taking the upper hand and being able to leverage the Family of Blood's momentary distraction to take Mother of Mine hostage, allowing everyone to escape before hoofing it herself, John and Joan in tow. After that, the slow, inexorable march of the Family of Blood on the school is center stage. They send their strawmen army to assault the school as the school boys hunker down and defend it, finally putting their war skills to use. The episode, as a whole, is a decently well-done metaphor for the encroaching spectre of World War I: beyond the schoolchildren hunkering down behind sandbags as they set up a turret emplacement, the way the strawmen themselves assault the base is very reminiscent of how WWI battles were fault, with a torrent of bodies being hurled into an almost-literal meat grinder as they simply swarmed fortified positions, hoping to overwhelm the position before they all were killed. It's why the assault, as subsequent slaughter, of the strawmen was so personally affecting for me: the clear symbolism is unsettlingly present here, and it's reinforced by the boys' certainty that they're firing on humans over anthropomorphized scarecrows. The shot of the boys, some clearly no older than 10, firing shot after shot into the assaulting strawmen as tears stream down their faces, overwhelmed by the horror of what they are doing, is striking. But even when the Headmaster walks over and reveals that it's "just straw", it somehow makes the scene even more horrifying, when you really think about it; all of these children, all of these young boys, will be doing this exact same thing, very soon, but on very real and very deadly actual humans. The mere fact that defending the base is essentially just some good practice, and not really a life-threatening situation, is one of the most sorrowful notes that Doctor Who has hit in its entire run thus far. I love episodes of Doctor Who that use their settings to make larger thematic points (as seen in the "Empty Child" two-parter), and the way the "Family of Blood" used its on-the-cusp-of-WWI (especially the fact that it used World War I- it's a very dark, ugly war that had no clear "good guys" and "bad guys", and is a war best left forgotten when considering the atrocities perpetrated on its participants) setting to make these bolder, rougher, harsher statements would've assured its A by itself. But it's the second half of the episode that is the true shining star, which is spent almost entirely with John Smith wrestling with having to, essentially, sacrifice himself so The Doctor can come back. Even above the greatness of watching Son of Mine primp and preen, even above the dark effectiveness of its WWI analogy, watching John try to hash out the reality of his situation- that he doesn't exist and never did -is some truly affecting stuff. It's a performance sold by Tennant, as he spends most of his time as John scared, sobbing, and moments away from a psychotic break. Learning that everything about your life is a lie, up to and including your identity, would be truly horrifying to learn, and Tennant doesn't shy away from embracing that inherent pain. He ensures that John Smith is relatable and truly sympathetic, as John sobs out: "I'm John Smith. That's all I want to be! John Smith, with his life- and his job -and his love! Why can't I be John Smith? Isn't he a good man?" It impresses more and more the overriding theme of this two-parter: John Smith and The Doctor are two separate people. John Smith is just a man: his terror and staunch refusal to sacrifice himself, and all of his dreams, just to give The Doctor what he wants is understandable and even sympathetic considering that John Smith, he's just, well...he's just human. The Doctor would think nothing of killing himself to protect another, but as John Smith knows from the flashforward vignette of the life he could have lived, where he married Joan and had kids and died old and happy, in the arms of the woman he loved, John Smith has attachments to protect, a life he could have had if The Doctor hadn't intruded on it. Indeed, as he yells at Martha, "Falling in love? That didn't even occur to him? What sort of man is that? And now you expect me to die?" Which is the point of the thing; surprisingly, despite the Family of Blood being so devilishly, engrossingly evil, The Doctor is kind of the villain of the episode. The major heroic actions this episode were taken by either Martha (in saving everyone's bacon multiple times and convincing John Smith to embrace his Doctor-ness) or John Smith (in sacrificing himself to bring The Doctor back); The Doctor's subsequent destruction of the Family's spaceship comes off as a bare afterthought to the truly important, world-savingly crucial events. Indeed, the juxtaposition of John Smith's ultimately noble death and The Doctor's imprisonment/torture of The Family that reeks of petty vengeance in a way that's quite psychopathic is downright chilling. The Doctor, afterwards, barely seems to care about the consequences of his actions, or the people he's hurt; Joan confronts him about how the whole, awful exercise was only caused by him being there, and he has no answer for her. He offers Joan a pity slot as Companion, but it reads even coming out his mouth as a limp-wristed attempt at make-good for killing the love of her life. As even Son of Mine notes, the whole reason the "Human Nature" two-parter even happened was to give The Family a chance to escape The Doctor's wrath; eventually, The Doctor, not anyone else in this episode, is the real antagonist. The reason why "Family of Blood" has a great villain is, well, because The Doctor himself is the villain. Grade: A Random Thoughts:
NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Sep 25, 2014 |
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Sep 25, 2014 02:52
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Man I loved the line about falling in love not occurring to him. This is a really fantastic episode.
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Sep 25, 2014 03:03
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Toxxupation posted:Which is the point of the thing; surprisingly, despite the Family of Blood being so devilishly, engrossingly evil, The Doctor is kind of the villain of the episode. [. . .] Indeed, the juxtaposition of John Smith's ultimately noble death and The Doctor's imprisonment/torture of The Family that reeks of petty vengeance in a way that's quite psychopathic is downright chilling. The Doctor, afterwards, barely seems to care about the consequences of his actions, or the people he's hurt; Joan confronts him about how the whole, awful exercise was only caused by him being there, and he has no answer for her. He offers Joan a pity slot as Companion, but it reads even coming out his mouth as a limp-wristed attempt at make-good for killing the love of her life. As even Son of Mine notes, the whole reason the "Human Nature" two-parter even happened was to give The Family a chance to escape The Doctor's wrath; eventually, The Doctor, not anyone else in this episode, is the real antagonist. The reason why "Family of Blood" has a great villain is, well, because The Doctor himself is the villain. I've said it ITT before but yeah. Tennant's take on the Doctor, for all his happy-go-lucky wackadooness, is really kind of a monster when left to his own devices, as Donna noted and as he proved in this two-parter. It creates such a weird dichotomy and it's the thing that really gives some shading to Tennant's otherwise twee as gently caress performance. Soothing Vapors fucked around with this message at 03:25 on Sep 25, 2014 |
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Sep 25, 2014 03:11
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Soothing Vapors posted:Tennant's take on the Doctor, for all his happy-go-lucky wackadooness, is really kind of a monster when left to his own devices, as Donna noted and as he proved in this two-parter. Speaking of, has this video been posted in this thread yet? Because it belongs in every Doctor Who thread.
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Sep 25, 2014 03:18
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Lots of people hate the ending to the Family of Blood, but I think it's one of the defining moments in Ten developing his ego problem.
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Sep 25, 2014 03:23
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thexerox123 posted:Speaking of, has this video been posted in this thread yet? Because it belongs in every Doctor Who thread. Everything about this is incredible So "no guns" was purely a revival thing? Because of his timelord PTSD or whatever? Bicyclops posted:Lots of people hate the ending to the Family of Blood, but I think it's one of the defining moments in Ten developing his ego problem. Absolutely.
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Sep 25, 2014 03:24
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Soothing Vapors posted:
It really depends on who's writing the episode or serial, classic or revival. Nine was big on guns, if you remember. Nonviolence is usually one of the Doctor's defining features, Ten's drowning adventures and Three vaporizing an Ogron notwithstanding.
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Sep 25, 2014 03:27
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Soothing Vapors posted:Everything about this is incredible Pretty much. The Doctor didn't LIKE guns, to be sure, and he wouldn't take one up for no reason-but if he had to, yeah, he'd use a loving gun. Much like he'd use explosives to blow up Daleks or what have you.
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Sep 25, 2014 03:27
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I thought Five was supposed to be the ultra-pacifist doctor, but it seems like half that video is him wasting people.
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Sep 25, 2014 03:28
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Potooweet posted:I thought Five was supposed to be the ultra-pacifist doctor, but it seems like half that video is him wasting people. Five... Five had a rough life.
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Sep 25, 2014 03:30
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Bicyclops posted:Lots of people hate the ending to the Family of Blood, but I think it's one of the defining moments in Ten developing his ego problem. And yet it's one of my favorite parts of the episode. I mean the punishments the Doctor inflicts on the family are horrific, but at the same time they are so fairy-tale and mythic that it just works.
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Sep 25, 2014 03:31
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Man I forgot how brutal Tennant's treatment of The Family was, I'll have to rewatch this story.
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Sep 25, 2014 03:31
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howe_sam posted:And yet it's one of my favorite parts of the episode. I mean the punishments the Doctor inflicts on the family are horrific, but at the same time they are so fairy-tale and mythic that it just works. I was with all of them save for Daughter of Mine. That one was too loving grand and "out there" to work.
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Sep 25, 2014 03:34
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howe_sam posted:And yet it's one of my favorite parts of the episode. I mean the punishments the Doctor inflicts on the family are horrific, but at the same time they are so fairy-tale and mythic that it just works. Yeah, there's something very Neil Gaiman writing the Old Gods about it, as well as this quote, which I had forgotten about until the review: Toxxupation posted:Joan: "You chose to change; he chose to die."
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Sep 25, 2014 03:34
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Bicyclops posted:Yeah, there's something very Neil Gaiman writing the Old Gods about it, as well as this quote, which I had forgotten about until the review: The ending does rely on the Doctor being something like a Greek or Norse god, wreaking terrible vengeance on mortals for their hubris. And the severity of the punishments jiggles around a bit. Father of mine gets wrapped up in some chains and dropped down a mine shaft, but Sister of Mine is trapped in an abstract prison. I was ready for son of mine to wind up his narration from a cave in the center of the earth while a serpent dripped venom into his eyes until
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Sep 25, 2014 03:41
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mind the walrus posted:I was with all of them save for Daughter of Mine. That one was too loving grand and "out there" to work. That one just makes me laugh every time because it's so ludicrous. But the one that confuses me is Father of Mine. He puts him in unbreakable chains... and then what? Stashes him in a closet somewhere in the TARDIS? (It shows him pushing him into some hole in a random hallway. I get how the other punishments have them living forever, but not really his.) Edit: kinda beaten. thexerox123 fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Sep 25, 2014 |
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Sep 25, 2014 03:43
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Father was actually the Doctor's last punishment doled out, he was out of ideas. Imagine four Fathers on the edge of a cliff.
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Sep 25, 2014 03:56
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Doctor Who "The Family of Blood" Series 3, Episode 9 Doctor Who? By and large the question posed by the show's title is treated as a cheap gag, but it occasionally comes up as a question of real significance, and rightly so for a man who has technically been ten different dudes at the time of this episode. It was a point of much concern for Ten during his first episode, and one that he kept pondering even as he casually murdered the leader of an alien invasion with a piece of fruit. The Doctor's the hero of this series, unquestionably, so we the audience tend to see him in a heroic light - a collection of tawdry quirks glued together by clever one-liners and a questionable wardrobe, with some angst to taste. Charming, idealistic, optimistic, with a great big crush on life, the universe, and everything, humans especially and Daleks excepted. He flips the switches and sonics the screwdrivers and makes the bad aliens fall down. So it's amazing how warped perceptions of the Doctor can become when he's not center-stage in an episode and events don't have to revolve around him, by necessity. The Family of Blood claim the higher body count in this episode, but for John Smith and his entourage, the Doctor's got them beat for sheer terror. That subversion of expectations in regards to episode structure I'd mentioned in "Human Nature" continues apace in "The Family of Blood," only now it all turns in on the Doctor himself. Picture if you will how lovely John Smith's night has been - his wonderful night at the dance was interrupted by a murderous student who needs to smile a lot less and blink a lot more, he sees several people turn to dust right in front of his face, his maid turns out to be an ice-cold rear end-kicker who saves him by reversing her own hostage situation, his students are terrified and tearfully gunning down literal straw men, authority is crumbling, England burns, and everyone just keeps repeating the word "Doctor" and looking at him as though he's meant to do something about it. His idyllic little life is falling to pieces, faster by the minute, and "Doctor" is the backbeat to every bit of wrongness that's going down in what was originally a cute period drama. Smith's horror, the Family's obsession, and Martha's desperation casts a pall over the Doctor's normally-rosy image, and the way that the events of this episode warp everyone's perception of him is one of this two-parter's strongest achievements. I mean, let's run down the list. Martha insists, rightly, that they need the Doctor to save them from the Family; Smith tearfully, and rightly, interprets that as an insistence for him to hurry up and die so someone more important can take the wheel. Timothy rattles off another gushing speech about how amazing and superb and awe-inspiring the Doctor is; Smith snaps at him to shut up, because the thought of something so huge nesting inside his own head is too much to bear. Upon touching the watch, Smith rattles off a Doctor-y explanation of Timothy's psychic powers; Martha's delighted, but Smith nearly gags on his own tongue because the erudite patter coming out of his mouth isn't his own. To John Smith, Doctor's not the daffy, comical space-man hero-guy we all know - he's some vengeful god-parasite that casually spun Smith out of thin air and would just as casually obliterate him so it can save the people he himself endangered and get back to adventuring. Smith's breakdown in the abandoned cottage is the real climax of this episode, not the showdown with the Family. It's where he's forced to encounter something incomprehensibly huge inside his own mind and surrender himself to it so that he can save the leftovers of a life he no longer thinks is his. The Family, with their laser bombardment and army of scarecrows, feels kind of quaint in comparison. Still, the Family are no slouches when it comes to villainy. Like Occ said, these are some of the first villains to display actual, gleeful malice beyond a simple mental imperative to destroy/consume/conquer, and every member plays that role to the hilt. Son of Mine is in fine form as always, but then we have Mother of Mine mimicking Jenny's dying screams to Martha's face, or Daughter of Mine casually murdering her host body's parents on the way home. The Family are never given much explanation beyond being "hunters," and they treat human beings with the kind of amused cruelty you'd expect a pudgy aristocrat to show a partridge (especially clear with Son of Mine, who even seems to treat our language as a hilarious joke). Even when they finally have what they want, they tell "Smith" that they'll just go ahead and raze the town anyway - hey, who's going to complain if they rip the place down a year early? Unfortunately for them, Smith's plea for mercy was just one more instance of Ten's favorite ruse - he'll happily give you an obvious second chance just so he can feel justified in ruining you when it's turned down. Son of Mine's quiet narration of the Family's ultimate fates is haunting, and his explanation of the Doctor's actions makes sense - Mr. Goody-Good Spaceman couldn't suffer people like them to live forever, so he went to absurd lengths to let them die naturally and avoid ironic, eternal punishment. But since they provoked him, he doles out said punishment like candy, and then jaunts back to England in time for the sunrise with barely a speck on his conscience. The Doctor's dispatching of the Family comes off partly as payback for the deaths they've caused, partly for forcing the hand of John Smith to sacrifice himself, but mostly as Ten indulging, once again, his penchant for outright destroying his enemies in a way that would probably make war-veteran Nine either run for the hills or go for a gun. The way the Doctor sweetly, quietly invites Matron Redfern onto his TARDIS minutes after finishing off the last of the Family just rams home how wrong his attitude seems - again, warping his usual charming affability and sympathetic loneliness into something much darker - and when he's finally told to get out and leave her to grieve for the man he killed, it feels much more just than what he did to the Family. Episodes like these, I think, are what the series is made for - when the rote cliche and rigid formula of Who turns in on itself and examines the tropes it's been relying on for so long, it both validates the more standard episodes and makes the exceptions all the richer for the experience. The Doctor's back to the guy we all knew up to this point, giving Martha a big ol' thank-you hug and seeing off an aged Timothy, but "The Family of Blood" emphasizes that he's a lot harder to figure out than that. Whoever the Doctor is, the "fury of the Time Lord" is always there beneath the surface, just like the Doctor was hiding beneath John Smith's. A postnote - one of my favorite scenes this ep that Occ didn't mention is when Martha casually devastates Redfern when called out on her medical experience. It's all Redfern can do to get out of there with her dignity intact, and is a long-overdue bit of payback against the repressive society Martha's suffered the last two months. Only thing that could've made it better is if she'd invented the microphone and then dropped it.
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Sep 25, 2014 03:57
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The parts that work in this episode REALLY work, they're amongst the best stuff seen in the revival to date, particularly Tennant's performance of John Smith's anguish and very justified despair at just how unfair the situation he finds himself in is. The downsides are mostly forgivable or can even be argued as justifying the sense that the Doctor himself is the villain in this episode - particularly Latimer's childish take on how Godlike the Doctor is. But that same "Godlike" ability is then repeated at the end during Son of Mine's narration, and while it suits the reveal - that the Doctor was hiding from The Family of Blood not out of fear but pity/kindness - it raises uncomfortable questions about the nature of what the Doctor actually is - a man or a God? We've already seen since Tennant started in the show that the 10th Doctor has a bit of a superiority complex, most particularly in The Christmas Invasion. But to have the story end the way it does with the Doctor becoming like some kind of petty Greek-God capable of inflicting monstrous ironic perpetual torment on his foes feels very wrong to me, mostly because I feel like we the viewer are supposed to be impressed or pleased with the Doctor's "power". He isn't a God, he doesn't have magic powers - he's a very intelligent man with access to incredible technology but a very "human" sense of morality - and the end of this episode paints the Doctor more as a supernatural force inhabiting a human looking body. I strongly dislike that take, and think it somewhat weakens the character - he doesn't solve his problems by reaching down with his mighty hand and inflicting divine power upon the little ants that have offended him. That's how the Time Lords were treated way back in their first appearance, but that was a group sitting in their seat of power, and the Doctor was contrasted by his lack of control over events/people because he was down there on the ground level as just another individual. There's more to say but it really suits a better discussion at the end of Tennant's run, because I think there were some very interesting if possibly unintended running themes throughout his time in the role. Suffice to say that up to this point in the series, I felt (and still feel) that the Doctor had demonstrated a troubling desire to enforce rather than educate his "superior" sense of moral authority, but that the end of this episode took the wrong message from that and literally turned him into a God. Perhaps that was necessary though, to truly contrast the difference between the strange Time Lord called the Doctor and the very human man John Smith. Again, Tennant's performance is exceptional, but everybody is on their A game (Lloyd especially, he's amazing). The scene where the Headmaster is taunted by Son of Mine is great, but something I really love about that scene is after the Headmaster has his world turned upside down and his own strongly held beliefs belittled. He staggers away looking like a stiff wind could knock him over and the expectation is that - when actually faced with a true threat - he will crumble and prove to have had feet of clay. Instead, the moment he returns inside he maintains his resolve and that "stiff upper lip" and tells the students to prepare to defend the school. This is a man who KNOWS that their situation is hopeless, but he wasn't just paying lipservice in his high talk about the necessity of duty and protection of the Empire - he believes that this the right thing to do, he knows it will be difficult if not suicidal, but he is committed nonetheless. It's resolve in the face of certain death that gives him dignity as a character, and John Smith ultimately makes that same decision and sacrifices his own life and potential happiness for the greater good. That the Doctor then chooses to characterize his own performance as Smith as a bumbling clown says a lot - the Doctor may think humans are great, but when he is required to pantomime as one he portrays negative aspects in an almost cartoonish fashion. Smith deserved better than that, and I think the episode knows this given Joan's savage response to the Doctor afterwards - John Smith was a bit of a bumbling idiot in a lot of ways, but he was also noble, kind and ultimately heroic. Edit: Oxxidation posted:A postnote - one of my favorite scenes this ep that Occ didn't mention is when Martha casually devastates Redfern when called out on her medical experience. It's all Redfern can do to get out of there with her dignity intact, and is a long-overdue bit of payback against the repressive society Martha's suffered the last two months. Only thing that could've made it better is if she'd invented the microphone and then dropped it. I think this is probably Martha's best scene to date, and a peek at the potential that was there for the character if RTD could have just exorcised Rose's ghost haunting up the place. Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 08:35 on Sep 25, 2014 |
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Sep 25, 2014 03:58
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Bicyclops posted:It really depends on who's writing the episode or serial, classic or revival. Nine was big on guns, if you remember. Nonviolence is usually one of the Doctor's defining features, Ten's drowning adventures and Three vaporizing an Ogron notwithstanding. In rewatching the old series, I don't find that's really true at all. I mean, he'll try for non-violent solutions, but all of the Doctors get cheerfully violent once that has failed (and sometimes even before that). Even genocide if he's really annoyed. Which brings us neatly back to Family of Blood.
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Sep 25, 2014 04:03
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