The Doctor Who Spoilers Thread – Part III

[John Hoare]

This thread continues this discussion. Careful, now.

Topic

[Zombie Jim Undead]

I understand that we got to see how much Donna had changed due to her travels with the Doctor through comparison with her mind-wiped pre-doctor persona…

But is having her character arc reset really the most satisfying outcome? Doesn’t it just nullify her entire journey and everything we’ve seen?

[Zombie Jim Undead]

Also, where’s Cappsy? I wish to know whether or not the finale did in fact make him puke now that we know know that the spoilers wern’t entirely “rancid ?shipper? crap”.

;)

[Pete Part Three]

>But is having her character arc reset really the most satisfying outcome? Doesn?t it just nullify her entire journey and everything we?ve seen?

Yes, and yes.

I thought it was wonderfully melancholy. And who is to say which is the better Donna? Self-involved Gobshite vs Saviour of the Universe?

It’s kind of a parallel to the clone-Doctor thing. The potential is there but needs someone to bring it out. For clone-Doctor that will, invariably, be Rose. For Donna…who knows?

[Jonathan Capps]

Hello! I echo what has already been said about so many wrong things happening, but all done really, really well. I loved pretty much all of it. It felt like a big ol’ celebration of Who and RTD’s era.

[Zombie Jim Undead]

I thought the ulitmate downer was that for Donna, the Doctor was the only person who could bring it out. Tate mused on Confidential that Donna will probably now just be a gobby temp for the rest of her life..and I’m inclined to agree.

The whole thing left me cold. The show takes an irritating, seemingly shallow character and takes us on a journey with her – seeing her develop above and beyond all her (and our) expectations…

And then it’s all snatched away and we’re back to square one…with no good reason other than to leave us depressed. I do enjoy the melancholy moments…but this one just seemed to shit over an entire character arc.

I know the themes of the episode revolved around the way we are changed through experiences and interaction with those around us…but that was made very clear through the fate of the human-timelord Doctor and very clear from the evolution of Donna. You didn’t need to reset her to make the point.

Darn it, I guess I just didn’t want to see Donna disappear like that. And that’s something I never thought I’d say!

[Tarka Dal]

Yep that was something else I thought yesterday, but come on he’s got 900 years of Timelord memories and in the RTD universe that alone is surely enough to mean that he’ll have his own Tardis knocked-up out of sticky back plastic and a toilet roll by oooh Thursday?

I think the main difference between RTD’s finale and Empire’s point on sequels is that in every case except Donna’s we’ve had a gap sinceeach of the ‘Who players’ were last around.

Plus I think they did all have something to do*. Sure we’ve seen Rose, Martha, Sarah-Jane & co before, but we’ve never seen them altogether in one story, one location. That’s where the scale ramps up and their combined appearance serves a purpose. That and the tieing up of character arcs and the establishing of new ones.

Re: The Empire blog, it isn’t generally writers who bring back characters for sequels. Writers themselves are often the first casualty when it comes to sequels as there value rises, with producers spending the dollars on bringing back the on-screen candy. As the article points out they appear to work on the logic that if they include the same cast, they’ll get an equally successful movie.

To me the point being made was more about characters outstaying their welcomes – sticking around and yet having nothing more to contribute. It’s easy to justify Marion coming back in Indy IV even if it’s just for a cheap nostalgic high, because we’ve seen Indy’s life without her. Compare that to say Mackenzie Crook in Pirates who essentially does the same thing in three different films, so if he turns up in number four it has no real worth.

Of course leaving characters behind doesn’t always work. David Fincher will always be a **** for killing off Newt and Hicks before the titles even rolled in Alien3.

* – Apart from Jackie.

[Pete Part Three]

>I thought the ulitmate downer was that for Donna, the Doctor was the only person who could bring it out. Tate mused on Confidential that Donna will probably now just be a gobby temp for the rest of her life..and I?m inclined to agree.

Possible. But her dreamworld in FotD hinted that she has other aspirations.

And if not, to repeat myself: who’s judging what’s the better life?

(Disclaimer : I should point out that I’m not a temp. Neither am I the most important woman in the universe)

[Tarka Dal]

> And then it?s all snatched away and we?re back to square one?with no good reason other than to leave us depressed. I do enjoy the melancholy moments?but this one just seemed to shit over an entire character arc.

True, but consider that the Doctor Donna scenes only work because they are like a firework. Burning bright and over fast. Imagine we were stuck with the Half-Tate, half-Doctor creations for a whole series?

[Andrew]

I LOVED the Donna outcome. Loved it. Dramatically spot-on, and a great way to conclude a companion’s journey.

But it DID make me dislike Turn Left even more than I already did…

Donna’s status as Most Important once again falls to being in the right place at the right time. Admittedly this is down to Caan’s manipulation (hmm, doesn’t that make Caan Most Important?), but it’s the Doctor’s brain that saves the day. Its fusion with a human’s gives inspiration, but there’s no suggestion that Donna’s humanity is somehow more appropriate than anyone else’s. (Which is ironic, because Tate’s performance is absolutely vital to the success of this fusion – there can’t be five actresses who could have played those ‘DoctorDonna’ scenes so spot-on.)

So, as before, her importance isn’t intrinsic to her, but rather down to capricious fate. As part of the whirlwind of a season climax, I have no problem at all. Adored it, in fact. As a conclusion to Turn Left’s dodgy promises, it fails. That episode demonstrated that her life would maintain the same old direction without outside influences – which makes Journey’s End’s conclusion all the more poignant, and Turn Left’s claims all the more redundant.

> who?s judging what?s the better life?

I think Donna is. She’s not happy. She lacks a sense of self-worth (a great bit of pop-psyche in the last ep discussed how this was redirected into her shouty attitude), and absolutely hunted the Doctor down so he could take her away.

Were Donna happy being ‘just a temp’ – as plenty of people are – that would be fine. But by her own criteria, she doesn’t rate her life…and yet without the Doctor, she’s unable to escape it. (You’re right about her aspirations on FotD, but again that existence is the product of outside intervention – Doctor Moon setting her up with her husband.)

BTW, anyone ever work out how Rose managed to make the Bad Wolf stuff appear?!

[Tarka Dal]

The same way she made the rest. She could see the whole of time and space back at the end of series one, so that must have included series four right ;-)

[Pete Part Three]

Translation: A wizard did it.

>(You?re right about her aspirations on FotD, but again that existence is the product of outside intervention – Doctor Moon setting her up with her husband.)

That was kind of my point though. Donna needs some sort of guidance to unlock her potential (whether that’s a role as a mother or a time lady) and that seems to be an ongoing theme of RTD’s Doctor Who. Consider all of his “family” members and how different their lives would be without the Doctor.

But it’s not necessarily the Doctor she needs. She may still find contentment in another avenue. I don’t see it as an unhappy ending as such as an “open” ending. You could read it that Donna will spend the rest of her life, secretly unhappy and wishing for something more. Or you could read it that, eventually, her potential will be unlocked by another influence.

Either way, I still think its extremely effective. Her disinterested farewell to the Doctor being particularly good.

As a sidenote to this, I didn’t find her character development being particularly gradual across the season so just a simple opportunity of escaping her life is perhaps all she needs.

My justification of this is that whenever Tate’s performance annoyed me, I thought she was just Runaway Bride Donna (i.e irritating to the core)…rather than something more. But, these performances were dotted across the season and seemed to coincide with the below-par episodes that this season served up.

I had no problems with the character in the better episodes (Pompeii, SITL, FOTD…even her small contribution in Midnight), while she still verged on aggravating in the dross elsewhere.

[Somebody]

I think part of the problem is that it’s not shown (especially since Doctor-blue is apparently fine) why the Doctor needed to do such a catastrophic search-and-destroy on Donna’s memory. He needed to remove the imprint of himself, fine. Perhaps the events of TL, TSE & JE as well since they all tie into that. But why EVERYTHING since TRB? If anything, by blocking stuff he doesn’t need to, he heightens the risk of it all bursting out one day surely.

[Seb Patrick]

>anyone ever work out how Rose managed to make the Bad Wolf stuff appear?!

Oooh, oooh, I’ve got this one – she made it appear when she absorbed the time vortex and scattered the message throughout history.

Because, y’see, she scattered it throughout her own personal timeline. When she went to the parallel universe, however, that timeline wasn’t in “our” universe any more – so the messages would all have disappeared. However, when she returned… it came back. Where it falls down, I guess, is that she wasn’t actually WITH the Doctor and Donna, so there was no real reason for it to show up there/then, but she did have a link to Donna, and had made a physical connection to the TARDIS with the attempted messages.

I’m not sure if that was the intended explanation, but it’s the one I inferred. It’s not perfect, by any means, but as a concise visual shorthand for the Doctor to immediately discover, without meeting her, that Rose was back in “his” universe, it worked pretty well.

[Tarka Dal]

So what I said above then, only in far more detail ;-)

[Andrew]

Seb and Karl being right, there. (Or, at least, it’ll do.) Shame – as with the companion ‘death’ – that it wasn’t articulated.

I love the moment, regardless.

Still, can’t help wonder why Rose never mentioned it. And there is that slightly odd thing that, in fact, Caan IS Time Vortex Rose in this story – knowing the threat that is to come he adjusts the past to manipulate the Doctor’s involvement.

[John Hoare]

Shame – as with the companion ?death? – that it wasn?t articulated.

I actually quite like the fact that which ‘death’ was fortold wasn’t explained, and you’re supposed to come to your own conclusions as to what Caan was banging on about. I find that more interesting.

(For me, it’s Donna – it fits best as a quite literal death of a *companion*.)

[Dave]

Is Caan a Mary-Sue?

[Jonathan Capps]

Christ, Arlene’s going to go nuclear when she sees this episode.

[Somebody]

2. I don?t think she can remember most of the stuff that she did when she absorbed the heart of the tardis. I.e. she might not remember having sent the BAD WOlFs to that time period.

Rose: If you… escaped the Time War, don?t you want to know what happened? What happened to the Emperor?
Dalek Sec: The Emperor survived!?!
Rose: ‘Til he met me. ‘Cause if these are going to be my last words, then you?re gonna listen. I met the Emperor. And I took the Time Vortex, and poured it into his head, and turned him into dust. D?you get that? The God of all Daleks. And I destroyed him. (laughs)

[ChrisM]

.And if timelord / human hybrids created in these circumstances cannot exist for long (i.e. Donna), how come he can?

Donna said “I got the best bit, your mind.” I think this means that she is physically entirely human, she just has the Doctor’s knowledge and personality. Her human mind just couldn’t cope with all that information, hence her little ‘short circuit’ “binary-binary-binary” moment.

As for the hybrid Doctor, I think he was still physically part timelord/galifreyan, and I think that gave him that extra something to cope with his memories. Probably best to think of him as essentially the same Doctor with some human DNA and memory influx.

As to how Rose left the message, yeah I agree with those who have spoken before, except for the BAD WOLF vanishing when she went to the other universe. I don’t think moving to another universe would change the events established in the universe one originates. She just sent the words to that particular time period from back then, signifying I’ll be back/I’m back. (Asta La Vista blondie. ;) )

>Still, can?t help wonder why Rose never mentioned it.

2 possible reasons.

1 she was so caught up in events it didn’t occur to her. (I.e. the moment she meets the Doctor again he gets shot, and then then everything got rather dramatic after that.)

2. I don’t think she can remember most of the stuff that she did when she absorbed the heart of the tardis. I.e. she might not remember having sent the BAD WOlFs to that time period.

Yeah I’m not sure I entirely buy that last one either, I think she would remember that much.

I was also curious how Dalek Caan influenced events. Did seeing the time vortex mean he also gained the same godlike power as Rose had?

[ChrisM]

Rose: If you? escaped the Time War, don?t you want to know what happened? What happened to the Emperor?
Dalek Sec: The Emperor survived!?!
Rose: ?Til he met me. ?Cause if these are going to be my last words, then you?re gonna listen. I met the Emperor. And I took the Time Vortex, and poured it into his head, and turned him into dust. D?you get that? The God of all Daleks. And I destroyed him. (laughs)

Fair enough. I still think she forgot some of what happened in that time period though. Big things like killing the Dalek emperor she’d remember. Smaller stuff like leaving a message to the Doctor… when she’d bump into him regardless, maybe not, (Although I loved that scene.)

The whole point of the Doctor absorbing it from her was that she couldn’t cope. True that was as much the destructive effect of the Tardis energy as the knowledge I’d imagine but the knowledge itself would likely have killed her, parallel with what happened to Donna. I was just listing her forgetting as a possibility anyway (one which I’m not convinced of myself, as I stated. ;) I think the main reason is that events caught up with them.

[Seb Patrick]

Donna said ?I got the best bit, your mind.? I think this means that she is physically entirely human, she just has the Doctor?s knowledge and personality. Her human mind just couldn?t cope with all that information, hence her little ?short circuit? ?binary-binary-binary? moment.

As for the hybrid Doctor, I think he was still physically part timelord/galifreyan, and I think that gave him that extra something to cope with his memories. Probably best to think of him as essentially the same Doctor with some human DNA and memory influx.

That was certainly my assumption. I’m not quite sure why people have such a problem with it. Donna is human with the mind of a Time Lord. Doctor II is a Time Lord with one heart and no regenerations.

[Arlene Rimmer BSc SSc]

>Christ, Arlene?s going to go nuclear when she sees this episode.

Meh. I’ve already seen the relevant spoilers.

[Zombie Jim Undead]

I still don’t really get the whole Bad Wolf thing. Why those words? Why scattered through time? To leave a message to herself? What was the message?

I remember it all being so very vague.

[Dave]

Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey

[Zombie Jim Undead]

Oh I seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

[pfm]

The way I see it, when she saw ‘Bad Wolf’ back home she then realised she must have left herself that message, so it means she must be able to get back to the Satellite 5 (the Game Station) in order for her to be able to leave it in the first place.

It’s similar to Dalek Caan manipulating things so that Doctor Donna would happen. Vortex-Rose brought herself back to the Game Station. Er…oh just fucking accept it. You just can’t think about it. Look at Back To The Future, the time travel aspect is so full of holes it would be unwatchable if you consider it too much.

[Smeg4Brains]

You aren’t thinking 4th dimensionally.

[Tarka Dal]

Can we have Dalek Caan as the new companion?

[ChrisM]

>Can we have Dalek Caan as the new companion?

That would certainly be amusing wouldn’t it?

I hope that they perhaps try for something different with the new companion(s). Ok, they already did with Donna, but even further than that. I.e. maybe someone from a different time period or and alien, or male even. Or maybe even more than one.

Ok he’s had 2-3 companions already if we include Micky, Captain Jack and that guy with the window in his forehead. But perhaps 2-3 companions that last for a longer period of time rather than the 1 semi permanent (as in at least 1 series) and the others that are more transitory (2-3 episodes). Actually it might be interesting to have the Doctor just traveling alone for the first 2-3 episodes, rather than finding a new companion straight away… (Although I’d imagine that could well happen in the specials.)

[Pete Part Three]

>I.e. maybe someone from a different time period or and alien, or male even. Or maybe even more than one.

The whole point of the companions are to act for the audience. Ie, asking the same questions that we would ask and reacting in a similar way to how we would react. An alien wouldn’t really provide the same service. They’d have to be careful with people from different time periods too, but they’ve done it before.

[Dave]

>The whole point of the companions are to act for the audience. Ie, asking the same questions that we would ask and reacting in a similar way to how we would react. An alien wouldn?t really provide the same service.

One of the things I really liked about Death Comes To Time was the companion Antimony, he was asking all those fish out of water questions but about early 21st century London, and lead to exchanges like this:

Campion: ‘What do I look like?’
Antimony: ‘Well, you look like a human, but with a bigger stomach’

But it’s probably not sustainable for 13 weeks or more.

What do we reckon Jenny or River?

[Zombie Jim Undead]

Sally Sparrow!

I think the Doctor travelling alone can work. Deadly Assassin was great.

[Pete Part Three]

Sally and Jenny.

(Doctor and TARDIS optional)

[Zombie Jim Undead]

(and clothing)

[ChrisM]

>The whole point of the companions are to act for the audience

True, but if we had more than 1 companion, we’d only need one to do that.

Besides, a lot of people have seen the previous series by now so they’ve already gone down that route. Asking questions from another perspective could be interesting.

[Pete Part Three]

But we get the other perspectives from the Doctor. Why are humans in every episode, despite being a fairly small percentage of the Doctor’s universe?; because they give the audience something to relate to.

To me, it’s the same kind of request as saying that the Doctor should visit more alien worlds and give Earth a rest for a season. It kind of misses the point of the programme (and sci-fi in general).

[ChrisM]

Hardly sci-fi in general. There are entire universes where Earth doesn’t even appear.

I didn’t say there shouldn’t be humans in new series anyway. Or even that there shouldn’t be a human companion with him. Point is, there can be more than one companion. And the human companion needn’t be from the present day. That doesn’t mean they couldn’t be related to, (humans really aren’t that different), and the new slant could add something new.

Oh and I’m happy for there to be more actual time travel episodes ON EARTH, along with the usual space-travelling fun.

[Pete Part Three]

>Hardly sci-fi in general. There are entire universes where Earth doesn?t even appear.

I didn’t specifically mean Earth-set stories; I meant that stories without humans or humanoids were against the idea of sci-fi. Of course there are dozens of shows, films and books set nowhere near Earth, but the vast majority all explore their situations using human sensibilities, emotions and perspectives.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with an alien companion, but they just need to offer this dynamic. And if they are going to offer this dynamic, what’s the point in them being aliens? Daft make-up and a funny costume?

[Andrew]

> To me, it?s the same kind of request as saying that the Doctor should visit more alien worlds and give Earth a rest for a season.

But when people ask for those – at least in the context of Old Who – they generally still mean ‘some planets with aliens who look like people’, don’t they? I don’t think there are many asking for all-alien, all the time, and NEVER humanoid. Nobody’s asking for the aforementioned human sensibilities, emotions and perspectives to be left behind.

Not that I entirely disagree. It’s a fool’s errand to be unfamiliar for the sake of it. I’d love to see stories set during the ancient history of a now-modern alien world, but causing/preventing a disaster IN that history has a tenth of the impact of doing the same with, say, Pompeii.

I do think you could do an alien companion perfectly well, though. The Doc’s so full of humanity, and an understanding of Earth-ish-ness, that a Leela-style outsider written in the more emotional New Who style has real dramatic possibilities. Questioning our values from the outside, while still needing info on other stuff that the Doctor traditionally explains. (Like…I dunno, Anya in Buffy.)

[pfm]

Billie worked brilliantly as the first companion for new Who because the public didn’t then see her as the posh girl she really is, mainly due to her pop days and being in the tabloids, they could easily buy her as this ‘chav’ character because as far as they were concerned that was what she was like anyway. SO she was perfect for the plebs of this country to ‘relate’ to.

Nothing else will do. Fully expect the first new companion of Moffat’s rein to be similar. No companions from other worlds (unless that planet is called ‘Chav-ron 3’ or something (the Doctor lands in the city of ‘Elizabeth Duke’…) and everyone is basically a gobby Londoner who wears pink and massive hoop earrings). OK, Donna wasn’t entirely like that, but that was overcome by the fact that everyone knew her as characters from the Catherine Tate Show

[Pete Part Three]

>didn?t then see her as the posh girl she really is

She is? She married Chris Evans!

>Fully expect the first new companion of Moffat?s rein to be similar.

Moffat’s ladies seem to be slightly different though; Sally, Reinette and River for example.

[Andrew]

> Moffat?s ladies seem to be slightly different though; Sally, Reinette and River for example.

And somewhere a Who fanboy is whining that those are sexually confident women and Doctor Who “simply isn’t the place for such things”.

[pfm]

But they were one-off characters. None of them would have worked as permanent companions, regardless of the copious masturbation that took place over Sally Sparrow.

[Jo]

I still think Sally Sparrow would make an awesome companion.

[Jonathan Capps]

> None of them would have worked as permanent companions

Why? Surely Donna has proved that even the shittest, most obnoxious one off characters can be revived and made slightly ok. There is absolutely no reason why Jenny or Sally (both good actresses) couldn’t be ace.

[ChrisM]

If utilized the right way I think they could work ok.

Having a strong confident character with the Doctor I mean, not the masturbation.

We’ve had a different dynamic already with Donna. No reason why a whole different character couldn’t work again. And being strong characters should not mean they have no weaknesses whatsoever, or no place to grow. Even as the Doctor himself shows weakness from time to time and needs the supposed ‘weak’ character to sort him out.

[Seb Patrick]

>Moffat?s ladies seem to be slightly different though; Sally, Reinette and River for example.

And somewhere a Who fanboy is whining that those are sexually confident women and Doctor Who ?simply isn?t the place for such things?.

… and somewhere else, someone (probably Lawrence Miles) is pointing out that Moffat can’t write good women characters, as if Coupling (in which, admittedly, his writing of women was bloody awful) is the only thing he’s ever written.

[Andrew]

> None of them would have worked as permanent companions

Well, sure they could, but the point is that Moffat has, let’s face it, some pretty solid recurring facets when it comes to his female leads. You don’t have to bring those characters back to see some of their traits in the new companions.

The Coupling three (who I don’t think ARE badly written – at all), Becky in Joking Apart, Suzie in Chalk, Lynda in Press Gang, Sally, Reinette and River..they all have much in common. Not the least of which is a blend of (often sexualised) sass and mystique, coupled with endearing doses of personal paranoia.

That said, he also does this with his male characters as well (The Doctor and Jack in The Doctor Dances being a case in point). So it’s as much about his general style as anything. Where Davies, you feel, writes with a big silly grin, and Gatiss writes with a kind of stern need to be true to his subject matter, Moffat writes while horny but self-doubting. :-)

[Smeg4Brains]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/s4/episodes/S4_01?episode=S4_01&character=&action=videostream&playlist=/doctorwho/playlists/s4_01/video/s4_01_trl_13.xml&video=1&date=&summary=David%20Tennant%20tests%20drives%20the%20reasonably%20priced%20TARDIS.&info=&i

[Author]

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