Geronimo!

[jjpor]

I was going to do a big End of Time Part Two reaction post like I did for Part One, but thinking about, it would really be a post about my thoughts on/problems with RTD and the characterisation of Ten over the course of his run, which is a bigger topic and one I can't really be bothered writing about at the moment, but it may still come in the near future.

Some random thoughts, for now:

Do you remember the way the interior of the TARDIS exploded when One/Five/Six/Nine regenerated in there? No, neither do I.

Similarly, do you remember when Doctors accepted their fates calmly, stoically, dare I say heroically?

Did anyone go WTF at the bit where Sylvia was straight-out praying to the Doctor...and her prayers were answered....?

Since when has the Doctor felt the need to reward his companions financially? Since when has Doctor Who been pushing the idea that money = happiness?

I may be one of the few people who can get on board with the idea of Martha/Mickey, but...what happened to poor old Tom Milligan?

I guess we now know what Tommy Knight was doing, apart from his GCSEs, during that SJA episode Luke didn't appear in.

Rassilon? What? Who? Where? How? WTF?!

Who was that mysterious woman in white? Answers on a postcard...

And as unlikely as it seems after all of that, there were parts of this I actually quite liked - I may be the only person who thought Captain Jack's Star Wars cantina scene was kind of amusing. Intentionally, I mean. Simm was great. Cribbins was great. Tennant was great - see my earlier comments about my admiration for his acting being undiminished by my head scratching at some of the scripts. Dalton was great - too bad he was hardly onscreen, because the actual, for want of a better word, plot was less important in this than the angst and the extended tour of all RTD's favourite fanfic characters. It reminded me of Journey's End in that - it reminded me of Journey's End to a scary degree, actually. And like Journey's End, the worst thing about it was that there were some good elements, but the less-good elements kind of ruined them for me. In a way, it'd be better if it had just been rubbish, instead of so...disappointing.

And Murray Gold needs to take a valium or something. ;D

Still, on brief first impressions, the boy Smith looks okay, doesn't he? Bring on S5!

Comments

[sciathan-file.livejournal.com]

Straight up yelled at the Rassilon thing. I have no idea what the heck was happening. (Also, what was up with the weeping angel connections? Am I the only one that caught that?)

I didn't think it was terrible, but would have been so much better had he just regenerated right after Wilf killed him (I thought that was excellent) and skipped the massive sentimental excess. I'm also overall mystified by Martha and Mickey....and random Sontarans.

I have a love-hate relationship with the actual regeneration when we got to it (TARDIS blowing up was unnecessary), but as Ten is my Doctor (for some reason I watched Season 2 of the new series prior to season 1...), the tiniest sentimental bit of me agreed. But I agree, when you compare his going out with the entire gamut of Doctor Who, Ten's were straight up pathetic. Give me some good ol' Four "It has been prepared for" and some more narrative restraint and intimacy. (Or "The War Games"...that was a swan song even at 10 episodes).

And Eleven looks very promising.

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

He does indeed! It's going to be a long wait until "Spring 2010" (couldn't they be more specific than that?!)

There were a fair few WTF moments going on in Pt2, just like Pt1 - the weeping angels thing I didn't really get either, but considering Moffat is looking at bringing them back in S5, it might have been A Clue... As for Rassilon - I didn't know whether to squee or scream, but I surely didn't understand it... ;D

The whole 20-30 min "death scene" did seem very over-the-top and unnecessary, and really self-indulgent. I keep mentioning Journey's End, but that's what it reminded me of. I agree that it would have been brilliant to just end it there in the radiation chamber, with Wilf standing over him as he regenerated. That would have been great.

I don't know about Mickey/Martha really - I guess it's more the idea of The Further Adventures of Martha and Mickey! that appeals to me... ;D

Yeah, the exploding TARDIS didn't do much for me, as it seemed to be trying to imply that this was the greatest, most important, most emotional regeneration EVER, and I really don't buy that. Maybe if Ten is your Doctor, then yes, but for me the most emotionally intense and genuinely heroic Doctor death is Five's demise in Caves of Androzani - Ten wasn't even in the same ballpark as that.