Amy's Choice
May. 15th, 2010 07:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
masterofmidgetsIt's Saturday Night, and that means it's time for Doctor Who vs the Creepy Guy In the Bowtie!
1. This is basically a serviceable version of a classic sci-fi standby, the Recursive Reality mindscrew: Buffy's done it, Supernatural's done it, Star Trek's done it, heck, I'm pretty sure Doctor Who's done it before. How you feel about this episode is probably going to depend a good deal on how you feel about recursive reality as a sci-fi trope. I generally find it a compelling theme (side note: I also have a huge kink for stories where the Winchester brothers are actually delusional serial killers ala Frailty), so I enjoyed this pretty well. That being said, it does I think I have a flaw I'm having a hard time articulating. Maybe it is the way they set up the choice that everyone - but really Amy, in the end it's all about Amy - has to make; for it to have any kind of weight I feel like it should be a hard choice to make, but it's obvious from the first five minutes that the married-and-a-baby thing isn't her dream, that she doesn't really want it. It was patently obvious it wasn't real, and so I had a hard time believing in her dilemma.
2. I do feel bad for Rory, though, with his adorably domestic ambitions and his dorky little ponytail. LEAVE AMY WITH THE DOCTOR AND MARRY ME RORY. Okay, no, actually, in the Perfect Season 5 that I am writing in my head, this is the resolution of Rory's being the symbol of boring life of normal Amy escaped. Once he accepts that he is now officially a Companion, he learns Adventuring Skills and how to shoot aliens with rocket launchers and he and Amy have giggly post-adventure sex all over the TARDIS and everyone is happy. DON'T DISAPPOINT ME MOFFAT.
3. A lot of British grandparents are going to be wondering this week why their wee grandchildren are so nervous around them. Moffat is really having fun with this whole 'Doctor Who is children's telly' thing, isn't he? So many of these episodes (I know we're only on 7, shut up) tap into fears that are an iconic part of childhood and growing up. I was never afraid of old people, per se, but my aunt was a nurse in a nursing home for many many years, and there is something unsettling about the place, like a hospital but much worse.
4. "You threw the manual into a supernova? Why?" "Because it disagreed with me! Stop talking to me when I'm cross!"
5. Okay, it goes without saying that I loved the idea of the Dream Lord as the manifestation of the Doctor's guilt, repression, and self-loathing. Mmmmm delicious canon angst. And Smith pulled it off brilliantly, especially the last scene. I want to have deeper thoughts about this and what it reveals about Eleven (compared to previous incarnations of the Doctor), but all I could think of, in the scene where the Dream Lord accuses him of always leaving his companions behind when they outgrow him was a quote from...I guess it was from the original series, but I read it a long time ago and I haven't been able to find it again. But the Doctor says that eventually all his companions grow out of his adventures and want to settle down with their own lives; the only one who will never leave him is the TARDIS. It was a quiet, poignant character moment, and coming across it so early in my experience with DW did a lot to shape how I thought about the Doctor.
This episode was also an unexpected reminder that ever since I first read Peter Pan in middle school, I've had a hard time not thinking of it as a tragedy. Take that as you will.
1. This is basically a serviceable version of a classic sci-fi standby, the Recursive Reality mindscrew: Buffy's done it, Supernatural's done it, Star Trek's done it, heck, I'm pretty sure Doctor Who's done it before. How you feel about this episode is probably going to depend a good deal on how you feel about recursive reality as a sci-fi trope. I generally find it a compelling theme (side note: I also have a huge kink for stories where the Winchester brothers are actually delusional serial killers ala Frailty), so I enjoyed this pretty well. That being said, it does I think I have a flaw I'm having a hard time articulating. Maybe it is the way they set up the choice that everyone - but really Amy, in the end it's all about Amy - has to make; for it to have any kind of weight I feel like it should be a hard choice to make, but it's obvious from the first five minutes that the married-and-a-baby thing isn't her dream, that she doesn't really want it. It was patently obvious it wasn't real, and so I had a hard time believing in her dilemma.
2. I do feel bad for Rory, though, with his adorably domestic ambitions and his dorky little ponytail. LEAVE AMY WITH THE DOCTOR AND MARRY ME RORY. Okay, no, actually, in the Perfect Season 5 that I am writing in my head, this is the resolution of Rory's being the symbol of boring life of normal Amy escaped. Once he accepts that he is now officially a Companion, he learns Adventuring Skills and how to shoot aliens with rocket launchers and he and Amy have giggly post-adventure sex all over the TARDIS and everyone is happy. DON'T DISAPPOINT ME MOFFAT.
3. A lot of British grandparents are going to be wondering this week why their wee grandchildren are so nervous around them. Moffat is really having fun with this whole 'Doctor Who is children's telly' thing, isn't he? So many of these episodes (I know we're only on 7, shut up) tap into fears that are an iconic part of childhood and growing up. I was never afraid of old people, per se, but my aunt was a nurse in a nursing home for many many years, and there is something unsettling about the place, like a hospital but much worse.
4. "You threw the manual into a supernova? Why?" "Because it disagreed with me! Stop talking to me when I'm cross!"
5. Okay, it goes without saying that I loved the idea of the Dream Lord as the manifestation of the Doctor's guilt, repression, and self-loathing. Mmmmm delicious canon angst. And Smith pulled it off brilliantly, especially the last scene. I want to have deeper thoughts about this and what it reveals about Eleven (compared to previous incarnations of the Doctor), but all I could think of, in the scene where the Dream Lord accuses him of always leaving his companions behind when they outgrow him was a quote from...I guess it was from the original series, but I read it a long time ago and I haven't been able to find it again. But the Doctor says that eventually all his companions grow out of his adventures and want to settle down with their own lives; the only one who will never leave him is the TARDIS. It was a quiet, poignant character moment, and coming across it so early in my experience with DW did a lot to shape how I thought about the Doctor.
This episode was also an unexpected reminder that ever since I first read Peter Pan in middle school, I've had a hard time not thinking of it as a tragedy. Take that as you will.