More on Doctor Who
May. 3rd, 2011 02:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerinOne complaint I'm seeing about the second episode that I don't get is the idea that it condoned genocide. Okay, that's one way to read the Doctor's solution... I saw it more of inoculating humanity against the Silence's influence. But even if you read it that way... well, if you have a problem with the protagonist orchestrating genocide, you would have stopped watching a long time ago.
That's why I'm not cutting this post for spoilers at this point, incidentally. If you've watched all of David Tennant's time in the running shoes, the idea that the solution to an episode might hinge on wiping out an entire intelligent species is not a spoiler. It would be more like a running joke if only it were funny.
Genocide was the most-commonly accessed preset on Ten's sonic screwdriver. If you zoom in on the palm of his hand, you'll see the following scribbled there:
When Ten exiled Human-Metacrisis-Doctor off to the Rose Garden, it wasn't for wiping out the Daleks... it was for not offering them a planet first, and really, given that they had all the planets they needed I think he could be excused for skipping past that bit.
It wasn't so much that Ten condoned genocide. I'm sure he thought it was wrong, and would be prepared to wipe out entire races to prove it. That's just how he rolled.
Eleven, on the other hand, not only didn't back up his offer to save the Saturnynians with an "...or else I will wipe out every last one of you.", he was filled with regret when the mother chose oblivion rather than accepting his offer. He described the Krafayis in "Vincent and the Doctor" as being "evil", a member of a brutal race that will kill without mercy until they are killed... and his first idea is still to stun it and his second idea is to talk it down. He wants to save it.
That's how he rolls. There's no "or else" with the Eleventh Doctor.
And I suppose maybe it's because I was so troubled by Ten's frequent return to the genocide well and so happy to see Eleven refusing to lower that bucket that I didn't read his (slapdash, poorly realized) plan as a means of wiping out all the Silence forever but as a means of making sure they never troubled humanity again... not because every last one of them is dead, but because humanity's gaze is no longer a safe place to stand.
Yeah, some of them are going to die... all of them if they don't leave... but it's a war that they had the privilege of keeping one-sided for eons. The Doctor's goal doesn't seem to be their extinction. He walks himself back from saying that he's going to let them off with a surrender... because he knows that he's casting a die that can't be called back and there will be casualties... but he describes it as the day the human race kicks them off their planet. He says he's raising an army against them. I think those are both better descriptions than "genocide".
Yes, he says that for a thousand generations humanity will be hunting them... but that "hunting" will only occur when they're actually in humanity's sight. And given the nature of their powers, that's tantamount to a hostile act. We could find an allegory for Gay Panic Defense there if we turned our heads and squinted, but I don't think that's what they're going for at all. There's no allegory here. The alien menace presented by the Silence is untranslatable to real world terms.
The episode is lazily written, in my opinion. The Doctor's solution is too pat given that it's not actually wiping out the invaders all at once across all of time and space... as presented he's kicked off the resistance, the battle for earth. He shouldn't have won it. A little more elaboration could have solved that. We might be expected to read between the lines to the fact that the Silence have never faced direct resistance before and so have no contingencies for it, but the fact that we have to do such reading is part of what I meant when I talked about the feeling that we're missing part 4.
But poorly written as it is, it's not genocide. It's an inoculation of humanity against a parasite. It's poisoning a world against invaders. It's leveling the playing field in a one-sided conflict.
That's why I'm not cutting this post for spoilers at this point, incidentally. If you've watched all of David Tennant's time in the running shoes, the idea that the solution to an episode might hinge on wiping out an entire intelligent species is not a spoiler. It would be more like a running joke if only it were funny.
Genocide was the most-commonly accessed preset on Ten's sonic screwdriver. If you zoom in on the palm of his hand, you'll see the following scribbled there:
Killer Aliens:
1. Talk. (Note: maybe they need a planet?)
2. Genocide.
When Ten exiled Human-Metacrisis-Doctor off to the Rose Garden, it wasn't for wiping out the Daleks... it was for not offering them a planet first, and really, given that they had all the planets they needed I think he could be excused for skipping past that bit.
"Need a planet?"
"NO THANK YOU. WE HELPED OURSELVES BEFORE YOU GOT HERE."
It wasn't so much that Ten condoned genocide. I'm sure he thought it was wrong, and would be prepared to wipe out entire races to prove it. That's just how he rolled.
Eleven, on the other hand, not only didn't back up his offer to save the Saturnynians with an "...or else I will wipe out every last one of you.", he was filled with regret when the mother chose oblivion rather than accepting his offer. He described the Krafayis in "Vincent and the Doctor" as being "evil", a member of a brutal race that will kill without mercy until they are killed... and his first idea is still to stun it and his second idea is to talk it down. He wants to save it.
That's how he rolls. There's no "or else" with the Eleventh Doctor.
And I suppose maybe it's because I was so troubled by Ten's frequent return to the genocide well and so happy to see Eleven refusing to lower that bucket that I didn't read his (slapdash, poorly realized) plan as a means of wiping out all the Silence forever but as a means of making sure they never troubled humanity again... not because every last one of them is dead, but because humanity's gaze is no longer a safe place to stand.
Yeah, some of them are going to die... all of them if they don't leave... but it's a war that they had the privilege of keeping one-sided for eons. The Doctor's goal doesn't seem to be their extinction. He walks himself back from saying that he's going to let them off with a surrender... because he knows that he's casting a die that can't be called back and there will be casualties... but he describes it as the day the human race kicks them off their planet. He says he's raising an army against them. I think those are both better descriptions than "genocide".
Yes, he says that for a thousand generations humanity will be hunting them... but that "hunting" will only occur when they're actually in humanity's sight. And given the nature of their powers, that's tantamount to a hostile act. We could find an allegory for Gay Panic Defense there if we turned our heads and squinted, but I don't think that's what they're going for at all. There's no allegory here. The alien menace presented by the Silence is untranslatable to real world terms.
The episode is lazily written, in my opinion. The Doctor's solution is too pat given that it's not actually wiping out the invaders all at once across all of time and space... as presented he's kicked off the resistance, the battle for earth. He shouldn't have won it. A little more elaboration could have solved that. We might be expected to read between the lines to the fact that the Silence have never faced direct resistance before and so have no contingencies for it, but the fact that we have to do such reading is part of what I meant when I talked about the feeling that we're missing part 4.
But poorly written as it is, it's not genocide. It's an inoculation of humanity against a parasite. It's poisoning a world against invaders. It's leveling the playing field in a one-sided conflict.
no subject
on 2011-05-03 01:41 pm (UTC)And yeah, it was wicked awkward, wasn't it? It threw loads of nifty pieces at us, and thought we'd not notice the structural lack because THERE WAS NIFTY.
no subject
on 2011-05-04 06:56 pm (UTC)