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Sep. 2nd, 2012 09:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerinBy happy coincidence, I've just spent the night in a house that has BBC America on Doctor Who Day, so before I hit the road I'll do a write-up of my thoughts on the new series premiere.
First of all... Oswin. Girl with a mind like a sonic screwdriver. I do take issue with the way the "just a phase" line was tossed off... Moffat, I really am grateful that you gave us Madame Vastra and Jenny, but gratitude is not a blank check. You've got a whole other franchise built around "Ooooh look gay, but no, not really. But look! No homo." Please please please don't insult Doctor Who's massive queer fan base by giving us a "just bi-available enough to be hot, but not queer enough to be threatening" companion.
That said: I do like her. I didn't expect to. I thought we'd get another 21st century earth girl, or another girl in her nightie with an imaginary friend, and Oswin is neither. She's her own imaginary friend, and the Doctor doesn't save her... which leaves us with the question of how she can be the companion for the second half of the season. She can't meet the doctor prior to crashing because she didn't know him and I don't think he'd be blase about the paradox it would create if he stops her from ending up on the asylum planet. Often when Moffat creates a seemingly intractable problem his solution seems like a total unearned cheat (I'm looking at you, Sherlock series 3 premiere... yes, I know you're not here yet, but I'm looking at you with a wary and skeptical eye) yet I am strangely optimistic about the possibility of Oswin having extracted herself off-screen. She wasn't telling the Doctor to remember her because she wants a memorial service. She's going to come looking for him.
(The viability of this depends in large part on how "conceptual" the flashes of Oswin The Still Human Girl bound in the Dalek chassis were, of course.)
While she doesn't do much to alter the demographics of TARDIS passengers, she isn't another modern era earth girl and that gives her a very Classic Who feel compared to other companions. In fact, this was a very Classic episode... we had Skaro, we had a legion of common Daleks, we had a human civilization that knew the Daleks and knew to fear them. And think about how the Doctor must feel to know that the Daleks have rebuilt themselves back up to this level. It's like the Time War never happened for them (except insofar as it's made them stronger), and the Doctor is still alone. The Time Lords came back and he killed them again.
The Doctor, Rory, and Amy all got to show more depth to their characters than a typical episode. Amy is still being saved and moved about by all players without her knowledge or consent. I don't think Moffat knows another way to write her. She's given all the trappings and outward flourishes of fierce agency but that's all. Steven Moffat, the sitcom writer at heart, doesn't know what to do with a woman in charge of herself except to use her as a punchline.
Still, her non-plot characterization was good.
Rory was befuddled and real and grounded as ever, but even in running away he got to show some of the action skills that the Last Centurion would logically need to have to pull off his off-camera feats of bravery.
The resolution was... interesting. Unexpected. The Daleks apparently didn't buy the Doctor's death, but now that's irrelevant. I don't think the intention was to make them irrelevant, necessarily. But now instead of being the Doctor's great enemy, they're the universe's again. The Daleks have been re-invented many times in New Who. This episode re-invented them as monsters, not by giving us soul-scooped Dalek-ized human drones ("You had a daughter." "I know. I've read my file") and honest-to-deadness zombies but by making them once again an omniversal horror without a target to draw and focus their ire.
First of all... Oswin. Girl with a mind like a sonic screwdriver. I do take issue with the way the "just a phase" line was tossed off... Moffat, I really am grateful that you gave us Madame Vastra and Jenny, but gratitude is not a blank check. You've got a whole other franchise built around "Ooooh look gay, but no, not really. But look! No homo." Please please please don't insult Doctor Who's massive queer fan base by giving us a "just bi-available enough to be hot, but not queer enough to be threatening" companion.
That said: I do like her. I didn't expect to. I thought we'd get another 21st century earth girl, or another girl in her nightie with an imaginary friend, and Oswin is neither. She's her own imaginary friend, and the Doctor doesn't save her... which leaves us with the question of how she can be the companion for the second half of the season. She can't meet the doctor prior to crashing because she didn't know him and I don't think he'd be blase about the paradox it would create if he stops her from ending up on the asylum planet. Often when Moffat creates a seemingly intractable problem his solution seems like a total unearned cheat (I'm looking at you, Sherlock series 3 premiere... yes, I know you're not here yet, but I'm looking at you with a wary and skeptical eye) yet I am strangely optimistic about the possibility of Oswin having extracted herself off-screen. She wasn't telling the Doctor to remember her because she wants a memorial service. She's going to come looking for him.
(The viability of this depends in large part on how "conceptual" the flashes of Oswin The Still Human Girl bound in the Dalek chassis were, of course.)
While she doesn't do much to alter the demographics of TARDIS passengers, she isn't another modern era earth girl and that gives her a very Classic Who feel compared to other companions. In fact, this was a very Classic episode... we had Skaro, we had a legion of common Daleks, we had a human civilization that knew the Daleks and knew to fear them. And think about how the Doctor must feel to know that the Daleks have rebuilt themselves back up to this level. It's like the Time War never happened for them (except insofar as it's made them stronger), and the Doctor is still alone. The Time Lords came back and he killed them again.
The Doctor, Rory, and Amy all got to show more depth to their characters than a typical episode. Amy is still being saved and moved about by all players without her knowledge or consent. I don't think Moffat knows another way to write her. She's given all the trappings and outward flourishes of fierce agency but that's all. Steven Moffat, the sitcom writer at heart, doesn't know what to do with a woman in charge of herself except to use her as a punchline.
Still, her non-plot characterization was good.
Rory was befuddled and real and grounded as ever, but even in running away he got to show some of the action skills that the Last Centurion would logically need to have to pull off his off-camera feats of bravery.
The resolution was... interesting. Unexpected. The Daleks apparently didn't buy the Doctor's death, but now that's irrelevant. I don't think the intention was to make them irrelevant, necessarily. But now instead of being the Doctor's great enemy, they're the universe's again. The Daleks have been re-invented many times in New Who. This episode re-invented them as monsters, not by giving us soul-scooped Dalek-ized human drones ("You had a daughter." "I know. I've read my file") and honest-to-deadness zombies but by making them once again an omniversal horror without a target to draw and focus their ire.