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Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

Jubilee is good but I'd hold off for a good long time before switching to pay-for radio drama produced by the guy who does the Dalek voices.

They're good, they really are, but they'd be nothing but confusing for someone who's barely two seasons into the revival..

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Grouchio
Aug 31, 2014

I do apologize if it seemed like I had spoiled the thread a page ago. I thought it was fine mentioning the lady in the bridal gown at the end of the most recent episode.

Captain Fargle
Feb 16, 2011

Bicyclops posted:

Jubilee is good but I'd hold off for a good long time before switching to pay-for radio drama produced by the guy who does the Dalek voices.

They're good, they really are, but they'd be nothing but confusing for someone who's barely two seasons into the revival..

He shouldn't bother listening to Jubilee anyway. Jubilee is crap. Jubilee is a really awful episode of Doctor Who.

Doctor Who absolutely should not ever be about what Jubilee is. Doctor Who is supposed to be for ten year olds just as much as adults and you know what a show for ten year olds really doesn't need? Extremely grim and explicit looks at misogyny, domestic abuse and the patriarchy.

Jubilee would be a decent, if rather hosed up, piece of original sci-fi. But as Doctor Who? Garbage.

Craptacular!
Jul 9, 2001

Fuck the DH

DoctorWhat posted:

Young women and middle-aged history professors.

l i s t e n t o j u b i l e e

I'm totally aware now that the Dalek state of being has been elaborated in the classic show, in episodes to come in this space, and episodes that premiered so recently that I have leftovers from that night that are still good. But I started where Occ did, and it definitely felt like "Aaaaah! Human girl doesn't hate and got her compassion all over me ahhhh (boom)"

But if I can ever be bothered to take that next step and listen to even one Big Finish, I promise you it'll be Jubilee.

Captain Fargle
Feb 16, 2011

Craptacular! posted:

I'm totally aware now that the Dalek state of being has been elaborated in the classic show, in episodes to come in this space, and episodes that premiered so recently that I have leftovers from that night that are still good. But I started where Occ did, and it definitely felt like "Aaaaah you got your compassion all over me ahhhh (boom)"

But if I can ever be bothered to take that next step and listen to even one Big Finish, I promise you it'll be Jubilee.

Nononnonononononono!

CHIMES OF MIDNIGHT! Listen to Chimes of Midnight!

jng2058
Jul 17, 2010

We have the tools, we have the talent!





Captain Fargle posted:

Nononnonononononono!

CHIMES OF MIDNIGHT! Listen to Chimes of Midnight!

Except Chimes relies on Storm Warning to set the foundation, so if he's going to listen to just one, Jubilee isn't a terrible choice.

BSam
Nov 24, 2012

Fine then, how about The Holy Terror.

primaltrash
Feb 11, 2008

(Thought-ful Croak)
Okay, Ocx, pick one:

1) Constant recommendations for audio adventures

2) Future episode spoilers

You can only ban one apparently.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Guy's there is a general discussion thread that would be more than happy to give audio recommendations or even talk about some of the companion-specific stuff that can't really be discussed in this thread yet.

NieR Occomata
Jan 18, 2009

Glory to Mankind.

armoredgorilla posted:

Okay, Ocx, pick one:

1) Constant recommendations for audio adventures

2) Future episode spoilers

You can only ban one apparently.

I pick...myself

primaltrash
Feb 11, 2008

(Thought-ful Croak)
You chose ... well.

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

Try this recommendation on for size: watch an episode!!!

thexerox123
Aug 17, 2007

jng2058 posted:

Except Chimes relies on Storm Warning to set the foundation, so if he's going to listen to just one, Jubilee isn't a terrible choice.

Ehh, I listened to Chimes well before I heard Storm Warning, you don't really lose any necessary context.

egon_beeblebrox
Mar 1, 2008

WILL AMOUNT TO NOTHING IN LIFE.



I love a lot of the Big Finish stories, too, don't get me wrong, but given Occupation's lukewarm reaction to the revival this far in, it wouldn't be a bad idea to drop trying to recommend various audio stories in this thread. It took me a long time to give Big Finish a shot, and that's after having watched all the way through series five of the new show and a ton of the old show.

primaltrash
Feb 11, 2008

(Thought-ful Croak)
Seriously, y'all are telling a guy who's just trying beer for the first time to drink a Triple IPA. Settle down.

NieR Occomata
Jan 18, 2009

Glory to Mankind.

Doctor Who
"The Runaway Bride"
Series 3, Episode 0

Donna Noble is a complicated woman. Her character, adroitly played by Catherine Tate, is wonderfully complex and flawed; on one hand, she's a bellowing, bull-headed woman who Gets What She Wants, on the other she's a superficial moron with a nearly-lethal level of obliviousness. On the third hand (of the circus freak this metaphor has now become), she's a compassionate and reasonable woman who is able to understand others even better then they can understand themselves.

In other words, she's the perfect Companion for The Doctor, and a welcome breath of fresh air after the will-they-won't-they drama that completely dominated Rose's time on the show.

Donna is really fantastic in her one-episode arc as a Companion. The episode begins with a bit of the immediate backstory that occurs right before she accidentally ends up on the TARDIS at the very end of "Doomsday", bridal gown and all: She's quite literally transported while walking down the aisle, and the episode picks up immediately after her confused and angry arrival on the ship.

Donna immediately makes an impression on the episode: She is not a woman to be trifled with. Catherine Tate plays the more exaggerated aspects of her character wonderfully, as Donna comes off as a constantly a hairs-breadth away from tearing a phonebook in half. She yells at The Doctor, she screams, assuming (somewhat reasonably) that she's inexplicably been kidnapped and imprisoned inside a dungeon with a decidedly tacky decor.

She operates as, essentially, a human blowoff valve this episode. After a two-season arc that ended in heartbreak and a generally bittersweet ending, Donna barges into The Doctor's life, Kool-Aid man style, and immediately takes command, forcing The Doctor to bring her back so she can have the fairy-tale wedding she's always dreamed of.

The first quarter-to-half of the episode is easily the strongest part of "Runaway Bride", as we watch Ten and Donna trade vicious barbs as they attempt to find some way back to the chapel.

We've never really had a Companion of The Doctor, so far, in open conflict with him; we sorta got it with Jack and Mickey (although with the former he was more of a smug observer and the latter was so pathetic it just seemed like passive-aggressive jealousy shots), and Adam was in conflict with The Doctor but it was all surreptitious so it doesn't really count. In contrast, Donna is someone who doesn't suffer fools, willing to (and does, multiple times!) slap the poo poo out of Ten before he goes off on one of his insane muttering tangents. She's also a woman with a goal that's distinctly outside of the Doctor's (go back to her wedding, which quickly progresses into saving her own skin), which in contrast to Rose's nearly insufferable amount of times she follows him around like a lost puppy is such a nice change of pace.

She's, well, she's a woman. A lot of the time, Rose felt like a girl, doing what she did because there was nothing really better to do/she was too dumb to figure out something better to do. With Donna, she feels like, more than anything, she has clarity of purpose, and that clarity tinges every single action she takes. As Donna mentions later on in the episode, she follows The Doctor around because "You already saved my life a bunch of times, I'm not leaving you at my side." This is a woman who has her priorities in order.

It's unfortunate that the episode eventually introduces an antagonist in the Dark Souls boss Quelaag..I, er, mean Racnoss Empress (played with scene-chewing camp by Sarah Parish), whose plans involve reviving her own long-dead race via the core of the Earth, with Donna as the key- I much preferred the episode when it didn't have an enemy at all and was based around the more mundane problems of The Doctor and Donna getting back to her wedding chapel.

The beginning of the episode is when the episode is at its most focused, and hilarious. The scope is small enough and the stakes low enough to make the romp believable, and The Doctor/Donna interactions are a loving delight. The sheer number of times that an issue eventually becomes at least world-threatening (I think it's happened literally every episode thus far) quickly becomes tiresome, and it was so fresh to have a more mundane problem for The Doctor to overcome, watching him be befuddled at the concept of money (as Donna angrily notes, she has no pockets!)

I would've even preferred if the enemy in the episode was solely the Santa robots (which was a very nice callback to "The Christmas Invasion"), since an episode about them trying to chase down/kill Donna is still low-stakes enough to make the story still relatively grounded. Once the episode becomes about the Empress and her plans, though, the episode quickly reverts to a bog-standard episode of Who, which isn't a bad thing so much as a not as great thing. I just wanted moments of The Doctor and Donna trading barbs and insulting each other! Is that so much to ask, Doctor Who?!

That's not to say the back half of the episode is bad. Sarah Parish seems to be having a blast as the Empress, and redefines the word "hammy" (which is saying something, when you have David Tennant as the star of the show). Watching the Empress yell about her "CHRISSSSSSSSSSSSSSMAS DINNER! RAK RAK RAK" (yes, she literally says 'rak rak rak') is so ridiculous and stupid it works besides itself and leaves a goofy smile on the viewer's face, and her little "I do" sequence with Donna and her betrothed, Lance (Don Gilet) is a delight.

Overall, really, the ridiculousness of this episode is at its zenith- I mean, there's an extended car-chase sequence with the TARDIS that is just goofy as loving hell -but, as with most things in this episode, it's part of a story that kind of runs away from itself. Nothing in this episode is really bad, and many, many things in this hour are genuinely great, but it never really meshes to a coherent whole like "The Christmas Invasion", ultimately, did. It's an hour of television that never seems exactly confident in what tone it wants to set and as a result isn't greater than the sum of its parts- even if those parts, individually, are loving great.

I've struggled trying to express why I'm cooler on this episode than I feel like I "should"; this review, in fact, was particularly difficult to write. But I guess if I were to put my finger on one thing this episode lacks, it's that sense of tonal clarity that makes the episode make "sense" to me. It feels like an episode trying to service a bunch of different plot lines- Donna's, the Empress' overall plot, and Ten's general malaise following the whole Rose thing -and be all things to all people, and because of it ends up feeling unfulfilling. It's the classic "jack of all trades, master of none" situation as televised enjoyment.

Don't get me wrong, I really loved a lot of this episode, and would happily rewatch. The scene where Donna and The Doctor go back in time, to watch the creation of the Earth (to find out what, exactly, the Torchwood shell company Donna worked for was doing) is a delight, and it's great to see a TARDIS virgin's unfiltered joy at the wonders of the universe.

The best scene(s) of the episode is when The Doctor, after the Empress refuses his demands to leave in peace, coldly genocides her entire race via drowning. It's a genuinely disaffecting scene- The Doctor comes off as a barely-capable psychopath, as he stands there, near reveling in The Empress' plaintive wails about "HER CHILDREN!"

It's genuinely just, well, hosed up. The Doctor is a messed up dude, and even despite Parish's over-the-top acting and the inherent ludicrousness of the scene it still comes across as deeply unsettling and disturbing, as we watch the dark side of The Doctor's personality, the side that emerged in "Dalek" briefly, come full force in this episode. Even Donna notices it, urging The Doctor to go out of a reasonable concern for his mental health.

It all leads into the final scene of the episode, as Donna finally throws a mirror up to The Doctor's personality and actions. As she notes, "Sometimes, I think you need someone to stop you."

Without a cheerleader, without any sort of buddy at all, who, well, who is The Doctor? This episode states that he's ultimately a sociopathic mass murderer when the chips are down, and maybe it's not his Companions that are the lucky ones- it's him, because without them he's lost. He's a dark, vindictive, mean man who'll kill an entire race, and do so happily, and he needs a foil or at the very least, a sounding board just to function. It's a dark end to an altogether inconsistent episode that works solely because of the strength of Donna as a character.

If there's one thing that separates Donna from Rose (and it's clear that she's meant, in a lot of ways, to be an "adult" Rose (at least Season 1 Rose)): black significant other who she's dominant over (even if Lance's submissiveness was ultimately a ploy), kind of a quote-on-quote "dumb" commoner, somewhat superficial, etc), it's the fact that Donna is adjusted. She saw the universe, and it changed her life, but she's under no desire to place herself in mortal peril week in and week out because of it. She met and hung out with The Doctor, had her life saved by him multiple times, but she doesn't fall in love with him (or even develop an ultimately unrequited crush). She helps him out because she's ultimately a good person, not one obsessed with him. She has her feet planted firmly on the ground, even when her head is often in the stars. And because of that, she turns down The Doctor's offer to travel with him; zooming around in the TARDIS will only end poorly for her, and she knows it. Besides; she doesn't need The Doctor; he needs her, or someone like her. He needs a friend. And, ultimately, he needs someone to stop him. Without them, The Doctor is ultimately a monster.

Grade: B

Random Thoughts:
  • Lance was also a very fun character this episode. In fact, all of the supporting cast in this episode were generally enjoyable to watch.
  • I was very worried the episode was gonna end with Donna confessing her love to Ten and him leaving because he couldn't be hurt again or some stupid poo poo like that. Thank god that loving bullet was dodged.
  • Donna: "How did that fit in there?" The Doctor: "They're bigger on the inside."
  • Donna: "Who will?! WHAT'S DOWN THERE?!" Lance: "HOW THICK ARE YOU?!"
  • The Doctor: "That big picture, Donna, you keep missin' it."
  • Donna: "I'M IN MY WEDDING DRESS!" The Doctor: "Yes! You look lovely. NOW COME ON!"
  • Catherine Tate's weird voice that kept breaking octave was initially really irritating to listen to, but Donna's greatness eventually won me over.
  • The Doctor: "Why aren't they stopping?" Donna: "They think I'm in fancy dress...They feel like I'm drunk...They feel like I'm in drag..."
  • Donna: "What did you do?!" The Doctor: "Something...Martian, now come on!"
  • The Doctor: "You're in space. Outer space. This is my space...ship."
  • The Doctor: "Where is this wedding?!" Donna: "Saint Mary's, Havenroad, Cheswick, London, England, Earth, the Solar System!"

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

armoredgorilla posted:

Seriously, y'all are telling a guy who's just trying beer for the first time to drink a Triple IPA. Settle down.

That was all I was saying!

e: Oh good, he likes Donna :)

Zaggitz
Jun 18, 2009

My urges are becoming...

UNCONTROLLABLE

Donna is the best Tennant companion. Maybe the best in all of new Who.

Soothing Vapors
Mar 26, 2006

Associate Justice Lena "Kegels" Dunham: An uncool thought to have: 'is that guy walking in the dark behind me a rapist? Never mind, he's Asian.
Donna owns. Donna owns hard. The dark days are over.

Regy Rusty
Apr 26, 2010

So far we're 2 for 2 on Christmas episodes.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Yes, so glad you correctly understood the objective truth that Donna is the best and rules.

And I absolutely agree that the Doctor clearly needs a companion, without one he loses all sense of perspective and his disturbing sense of moral superiority comes into full focus unfiltered by human compassion.

The Racnoss Queen is a distraction, and another example of RTD's seeming unwillingness to tell a story where the stakes AREN'T at least fate of the entire planet. Like you, I find the story is at its best when it's the Doctor and Donna interacting.

BSam
Nov 24, 2012

Zaggitz posted:

Donna is the best Tennant companion. Maybe the best in all of new Who.

True, pity she was only a one off companion for this one Christmas special.

Tiggum
Oct 24, 2007

Your life and your quest end here.


Toxxupation posted:

Without a cheerleader, without any sort of buddy at all, who, well, who is The Doctor? This episode states that he's ultimately a sociopathic mass murderer when the chips are down, and maybe it's not his Companions that are the lucky ones- it's him, because without them he's lost. He's a dark, vindictive, mean man who'll kill an entire race, and do so happily, and he needs a foil or at the very least, a sounding board just to function.
gently caress this. That is not what the Doctor is supposed to be. :argh:

Also, Catherine Tate is just the worst. I can't understand why anyone likes her at all. I hated her in Big Train, I hated her in her own show, I hated her in Doctor Who, she's just terrible.

Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007

Tiggum posted:

gently caress this. That is not what the Doctor is supposed to be. :argh:

Also, Catherine Tate is just the worst. I can't understand why anyone likes her at all. I hated her in Big Train, I hated her in her own show, I hated her in Doctor Who, she's just terrible.

Go to bed, Tiggum, you're drunk.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Tiggum posted:

Also, Catherine Tate is just the worst. I can't understand why anyone likes her at all. I hated her in Big Train, I hated her in her own show, I hated her in Doctor Who, she's just terrible.

I enjoyed her so much in Doctor Who I checked out her show and I absolutely hated it. I guess that speaks to her ability as an actress with somebody else's writing.

Tiggum posted:

gently caress this. That is not what the Doctor is supposed to be. :argh:

It is actually exactly what the Doctor is supposed to be. When the show first started way back when he was immoral, uncaring and more than willing to commit murder when it suited him. Traveling with human companions both mellowed him and gave him a different moral perspective (even if it was down to the first actors leaving, which meant the moral compass character became the Doctor by default), which is a theme the show would return to again and again over the decades and through into this revival.

Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Sep 9, 2014

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

Tate can be wayyyyy over the top in a bad way if she's given too much leeway, but thankfully, Doctor Who is the perfect venue for over the top, and she was fairly well directed as the bride in this Christmas special.

primaltrash
Feb 11, 2008

(Thought-ful Croak)
GOOD NEWS, NOW THAT YOU'VE FINALLY SEEN THE RUNAWAY BRIDE, YOU CAN READ MY FANFIC ABOUT DONNA NOBLE AND THE DOCTOR'S TRAVELS THROUGH SPACE AND TIME WITHOUT FEAR OF SPOILERS.

AppropriateUser
Feb 17, 2012
Doctor Who is at its worst when The Doctor is sanctimonious Space Jesus and at its best when he's this flawed intergalactic lunatic hanging out with decent people to keep himself sane.

Soothing Vapors
Mar 26, 2006

Associate Justice Lena "Kegels" Dunham: An uncool thought to have: 'is that guy walking in the dark behind me a rapist? Never mind, he's Asian.

Tiggum posted:

gently caress this. That is not what the Doctor is supposed to be. :argh:
I feel like it's specific to Tennant's doctor though. Eccleston's doctor, for all his weird alien PTSD ~angst~, seemed to have a moral compas, while Tennant's doctor seems like a cheerful psychopath sometimes.

Burkion
May 10, 2012

by Fluffdaddy

Toxxupation posted:

Without them, The Doctor is ultimately a monster.

Worse- he is a Time Lord.

This is a bit of character that goes back, way back, to the very first serial ever.

The Doctor needs humans to keep him grounded. To remind him of his own, for lack of a better word, humanity.

In that serial, he was about to murder a man in cold blood purely because they would have gotten in the way and inconvenienced them. It was his human companion who stopped him, called him out on his actions.

Time Lords, to a one, are either horrific monsters barely caring about the well being of the universe beyond their own concerns, IF that, or corrupt and incompetent to cartoonish, freakish levels. They are living Gods who reign above and beyond all of Creation and they know it. The good Time Lords we have seen in the show can be counted on one hand with plenty left over.

The Doctor is at his worst when alone. He needs humans to remind himself not to be such a Time Lord.

NieR Occomata
Jan 18, 2009

Glory to Mankind.

Soothing Vapors posted:

I feel like it's specific to Tennant's doctor though. Eccleston's doctor, for all his weird alien PTSD ~angst~, seemed to have a moral compas, while Tennant's doctor seems like a cheerful psychopath sometimes.

Hey oxx (I cannot count the number of times he's said that to me in gchat)

Adeline Weishaupt
Oct 16, 2013

by Lowtax
This episode is one of the first episodes that really reveals why I love Tennant as the Doctor; he's happy-go-lucky when he wants to be, but it's more of a bi-polar reaction to the immense amounts of emotional pain that comes from being the universes most capable philosopher. A man who's seen everything, including the war to end all wars, and is the ultimate outsider; and due to this he is able to understand the true nature of almost anything, temporary and frustratingly turbulent.

And despite this he laughs, and takes the time to try and see the good in all things; but when he can drop that facade you realize that he's a borderline sociopath control freak and will stop at nothing until he gets his way.

I love Tennant because his doctor is faceted in this way that makes his tenure a great character-based drama; which is why I prefer him over Eccleston.

Adeline Weishaupt fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Sep 9, 2014

Grouchio
Aug 31, 2014

I love it when the Doctor obliterates his enemies like the Time Lord he is. Because he is awesome.


Grouchio fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Sep 9, 2014

Zaggitz
Jun 18, 2009

My urges are becoming...

UNCONTROLLABLE

Spoiler tag that image bro.

Grouchio
Aug 31, 2014

Zaggitz posted:

Spoiler tag that image bro.
Dammit pictures of just the current doctor are spoilers too apparently.

Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007
Doctor Who
"The Runaway Bride"
Series 3, Episode 0

This was one of the episodes I would go back to again and again just to flip through my favorite bits, and oh boy, there were a lot of them. Between Tate, Tennant, and Sarah Parish, "The Runaway Bride" contains some of the best silly dialogue and physical-comedy bits in Davies' run, and maybe in the whole series. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Donna Noble is a shining example of Who fans' tendency to become dangerously loud about their cult favorites. She's a one-off character with a personality like steel wool and a voice like a bandsaw, but she'd adored because she's the first face we see coming out from Davies' long crush with Rose - well, that and the fact that she's a pretty great character. As Occ said, the best therapy the Doctor needs right now is someone who really, truly, dearly and sincerely does not give a tuppenny gently caress about his problems, and Donna blips into his life as though the TARDIS gave him a Christmas present.

The Doctor knows that Donna's ruined wedding day is his fault but can't work out how, which places him under obligation to her even as she shouts down his every attempt to be reassuring or clever; finally, thinks the audience, someone in this space-man's life who's not too busy making goo-goo eyes to offer up an opinion now and then. And besides, Donna's consternation is completely understandable - this was possibly the one day in her drab, petty life where she gets to feel important to everyone, and then she gets blinked into a big vwooping mailbox populated solely by a man who is not her fiancee. Donna feels real, flaws and all, which is a far cry from Rose no matter how hard Davies tried to ground her and definitely before she started treating her travels with the Doctor as an endless amusement-park ride. Donna's forward, but also insecure; she "bonds" with Lance by sniggering over how stuck-up her co-workers are because she's relieved that she's not alone in yet another temp job. She's catty to her friends and harsh with her parents, but they're not pleased with her either because she's probably pushing her mid-thirties (Tate would be in her early forties at the time of shooting) and still living with her mum and dad. She's an incredibly quick thinker when she actually focuses on something, but according to Lance she spends her life on a steady drip-feed of moronic pop-culture like any other directionless lifer. We've all known Donna. Many of us have probably been Donna. And yet there's also that goodness at the core of her that Occupation mentioned, which not only endears us to Donna but lets us feel a little more sympathy for all the Donna's of the world. God bless us, every one.

The Racnoss Empress, meanwhile, appears to know that only her head is mobile and uses every last loving ounce of willpower to ham up the world with it. Sarah Parish's facial comparisons and constant wet hisses are a hilarious joy, and the Empress' tawdry sense of humor (as seen in the "I do!" scene) just puts icing on the fruitcake (do not actually ice a fruitcake, kids). And she lives in a snowflake spaceship covered with spiderwebs! That's amazing! The Empress would just be tedious if it weren't for Donna giving the episode its human core, but that humanity, and especially Lance's interactions with the giant omnivorous spider-alien, save the moment.

And then there's Tennant. As I have repeatedly insisted to Occ and in this thread, Ten is a loving lunatic when he's not kept on a leash; it's as though Nine was so tired of feeling the guilt from his actions in the Time War that he deliberately regenerated into someone who was always, always looking for a reason to lash out at anything that had wronged him, and then bound away with a smile on his face and a song in his heart. We saw flashes of it in "The Christmas Invasion" and "Doomsday" (seriously, the Daleks and the Cybermen are dicks but Ten does a merry two-step at the thought of literally sending them to hell), but "The Runaway Bride" is where the plot itself finally perks up and takes notice at this unsettling behavior. The moment where the Doctor drowns the Racnoss spawn is framed as horrifying, not triumphant; the soundtrack is full of groaning bass and punctuated with the Empress' bereaved shrieks, and the camera looks up at a grim-faced Ten like he's a judge handing down sentence. It actually takes him several seconds to snap out of it after Donna calls his name - meanwhile, the camera zooms in on him literally gnashing his teeth at the dying Racnoss, as though he'd like more than anything to kill every last one of them and then drown himself in his post-Rose funk. Ten is a quirky ball of manic energy, incapable of standing still, but if he's left to his own devices one can imagine him torching entire star systems just because they refused his mercy - he says he's a "no second chances" kind of man, but sometimes, it seems like he only offers that first chance because refusing it gives him an excuse, which makes Donna's closing speech to him all the more effective.

"The Runaway Bride" fails to make itself into a cohesive whole, in the end. It's a double handful of lovely little moments with very weak connecting thread, and fares better in memory than in the act of viewing. But what nice memories, drained Thames and dead spiders aside. Donna goes back home, and the Doctor sets off for Season 3. Get ready, everyone. Here comes the post-Rose separation anxiety.

Oxxidation fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Sep 9, 2014

kant
May 12, 2003
Donna was a great. You really do have the correct opinion of this show so far!

LeafyOrb
Jun 11, 2012

I find this episode to be frustrating on series rewatches for reasons I can't really elaborate on yet.

Also Donna is the best.

Craptacular!
Jul 9, 2001

Fuck the DH

Toxxupation posted:

Without a cheerleader, without any sort of buddy at all, who, well, who is The Doctor?

Batman has explored this sort of angle before, which helped define Robin with story purpose instead of just being a pandering fantasy for the young boy demographic that bought the majority of comics in the 50s. Somebody could and should do a season arc about this question. Even better still, do it right after the Doctor's metamorphosis when he's often the most confused with himself.

I haven't watched this episode in a while, but what I seem to remember is some military hardware running down the street of another soap opera town and opening fire on the webbed spider-ship and bringing it down. They don't even appear to be an elite unit for handling such things, as Torchwood in it's giant villain organization form was just finished off and Classic series shadow organization UNIT is nowhere to be seen. This has got to be one of the few times where Her Majesty's Civil Defence just shows up and easily guns down a threatening alien ship without even attempting contact? Am I wrong?

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Tiggum
Oct 24, 2007

Your life and your quest end here.


Jerusalem posted:

It is actually exactly what the Doctor is supposed to be. When the show first started way back when he was immoral, uncaring and more than willing to commit murder when it suited him. Traveling with human companions both mellowed him and gave him a different moral perspective (even if it was down to the first actors leaving, which meant the moral compass character became the Doctor by default), which is a theme the show would return to again and again over the decades and through into this revival.
I'd say that right back in the beginning he was more willing to do whatever it took to ensure his own safety, but his main goal in those early stories was usually to observe without interfering any more than absolutely necessary. As he started to favour intervention over observation he also moved towards non-violent solutions. My favourite example is in Genesis of the Daleks where even though he knows the Daleks will eventually kill everyone if left unchecked he still can't actually bring himself to kill them.

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