"Sayonara, Squash Court Seven!" [SPOILERS for Doctor Who episode The Doctor's Wife]

[jjpor]

I come to bury Neil Gaiman, not to praise him.

No, no, actually, I do come to praise him a bit, actually...

Well, not to praise him necessarily. I'm sure he's a lovely man. He seems pretty cool in the interviews of his I've seen and read. I've read his blog a few times - also seemed pretty cool. I've read some of his books over the years and given pretty much all of them resounding thumbs-ups. But you know, I'm not sure I'd ever consider myself a Neil Gaiman fan, except in this very loose sense. Definitely not a Fan-type fan. I wouldn't let his recent marriage/whatever change my view of him and his works, insofar as I have a view over and above "I quite liked that book I've just finished", even if I did know who it was he married that some people apparently think they have a right to think he shouldn't (I mean, seriously?). 

But you know, he is a celebrity in the world of genre fandom and "geekdom". His name was always going to overshadow his long-awaited Doctor Who script, for better or for worse. I mean, in the week or so before The Doctor's Wife aired, there seemed to be many, many people working under the assumption that the story was going to be - just had to be - sheer genius surpassing just about anything seen in Who to date, while nearly as many people seemed to be pushing the idea that the emperor has no clothes and that anyone who liked it just a little bit would be proving themselves some sort of shill and dupe of the fiendish Gaiman-Moffat hype machine (ah, Larry Miles, gawd bless yer and all who sails in yer! :D). Of course, the reality was going to be somewhere in between these two extremes because, quite frankly and without putting too fine a point on it, those two extremes are pretty ludicrous.

Was it the greatest Doctor Who story ever? No, don't be silly. Don't ask me to name the greatest one, though, because my opinion on that changes every half hour or so. Was it even the best NuWho story ever? I wouldn't say so, but again don't expect me to name the definitive answer to that one either. Was it very, very good and a worthy addition to Doctor Who? Well, yes, I would say so. Definitely.

I think I went into this on the one hand wanting to be fair to it and judge it purely on the basis of what was on the screen in front of me, regardless of other concerns, and on the other hand conscious that I may have been tainted by the hype. As I say, I wouldn't say I was a fan-type-fan of Neil Gaiman, but I know plenty of people who are, and are also Doctor Who fans, so I did fear that something of their excitement and anticipation was rubbing off on me. Certainly, by Thurday or Friday of last week I was getting to the stage of being pumped/hyped/psyched/stoked/whatevered and slightly obsessing about watching it on Saturday. More than usual, even! ;D And as I was experiencing this feeling, another part of my mind was telling me "you're setting yourself up to be disappointed, you know. Nothing's going to be as good as what you're imagining it might be like". And on that basis, by Saturday afternoon I had managed to flipflop completely to the point where I was bracing myself for a disaster. Which was a little silly, really. So, ultimately, and entirely due to my own mysterious mental processes, I ended up being surprised by how good it was. You know, the emperor wasn't the best-dressed emperor I've ever seen, but he was certainly very nicely turned out.

So, as if we needed reminding on this point, the proof of the pudding and so on and so forth...

There was also the less quality-oriented concerns that had led me to be particularly expectant not to say anxious about this story. For months now, there have been speculations on who or what the character Idris was going to be. It was known that the story would have some relation to the Time Lords and a lot of the pre-publicity from Moffat and his crew was suggesting that it was going to be in some way game-changing or canon-busting in that regard. Now, we fans are a funny lot. It could be the best story in the world, but we still might think of it as the worst if it happened to push one of our particular fannish buttons. We all have those buttons, don't we? In my case, as anyone who's read any of my fic might be able to guess, one of those buttons where I'm concerned is Romana and her relationship with the Doctor and her eventual fate before NuWho began. And there was a lot of speculation that Idris was going to turn out to be Romana or some near-as-dammit stand-in. And this worried me. Especially as I've been obsessively avoiding spoilers this past few weeks and genuinely didn't know until I watched the story whether this was going to turn out to be true or not.

Well, I was pretty relieved when it turned out Idris was "just" the TARDIS in a human body, I can tell you. Not that I wouldn't love to see Romana in NuWho, but it would carry the risk of them doing something to the character that would "ruin" her in my fannish heart of hearts, or even kill her off for real or something. So, you know, I felt like I'd dodged a bullet in that respect at least, which probably bought the rest of the story a good deal of goodwill with me, really.

Sorry to parade my fanwank in front of you like this, but to be honest in the context of this story fanwank seems entirely appropriate. I have absolutely no idea what a non-Who fan would make of this, and to be honest I don't really care. I think the genius of this story (and I have to be careful using words like that in relation to anything Gaiman or Moffat were in any way involved in, for fear that Larry Miles will somehow track me down! ;D) is that it does manage to be game-changing and canon-busting, in some quite interesting ways, without actually changing the game or busting any "canon" (if Who even has canon in the Trek sense). Well, okay, so there's the throwaway reference to Time Lords changing sex, but you know, as with the thirteen-regenerations thing, such things are in the whim of the showrunners anyway and not worth getting fanwanky about, are they? So, the TARDIS stole the Doctor rather than the other way round? She loves him and he loves her more closely than maybe he does any of his companions? A million TARDIS/Doctor shippers may have just punched the air, but really this doesn't contradict anything we don't already know as Doctor Who fans. It tells us something that makes perfect sense, something we always "knew" as fans even if we didn't know it consciously. In other words, for me the defining thing about this story, quite apart from lovely little references like the Eye of Orion or the psychic cube from The War Games, is that it positively drips with love for Doctor Who. Gaiman has been accused of questionable ideological soundness by some Who fans for basically saying he's not too keen on anything that came after Two. That's his right as a fan - I think that whatever else may or may not be true of his opinion of Who he clearly loves the show and its premise deeply and sincerely. As much as the Doctor loves the TARDIS, maybe. He's one of us, this bloke, and it shows.

Now, the depth of fanwank on display here isn't the only good aspect of this story, although it is the major one. Everything else here, even Amy and Rory's plight in the hijacked TARDIS, was definitely secondary to the Doctor and Idris and their interaction. It seems almost churlish to wonder whether the story was actually any good or whether the story as a whole worked as anything other than a love letter to Doctor Who and a meditation on its central premise of the Doctor and his magic box. It was certainly very slight, plotwise, compared to the Moffatian shell-game we are now used to since the beginning of S5. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, though. This didn't feel like a lesser story or a filler story like Curse of the Black Spot did, more like a change of pace.

I think this was down to a couple of factors. The dialogue here was, without wanting to be unduly harsh, about ten times better than Curse of the Black Spot, and the actors responded accordingly. Matt Smith was...well, I know, it gets repetitive, but Matt Smith was astonishing here. He was required to show a greater range of emotion than he maybe ever has as Eleven, and he did it all with aplomb. From bouncing with enthusiasm to seething with quiet anger, to heartbroken at the end. We're lucky to have him, you know, even if his chin is hilarious. I'll admit to being a bit wary of Suranne Jones guesting as Idris, not that I consider her a below par actress, quite the opposite. I used to think she was great in *cough*CoronationStreet*cough*. However, her frankly rubbish turn in the SJA episode Mona Lisa's Revenge made me think that she was one of those actors who thinks being in something that's genre or "for kids" somehow means they don't have to bring their "A" game (Richard Briers in Paradise Towers - I'm looking at you!). Not so here. Definitely not so. I thought she was great. And Arthur Darvill and Karen Gillan were pretty good too, you know. "Aged Rory" was pretty scary, wasn't he? And Gillan, as she gains in acting experience, goes from strength to strength I think. I liked her in S5, whatever some people might have said, but I think she's growing all the time.

The other thing working in this story's favour was the absolute black-as-pitch fairytale element which certainly struck me as very Gaiman-esque from my exposure to some of his other work (and I'm sure people who have literally read everything he's done would have felt it even more strongly than I did). Not only the grotesque element like Aunty and Uncle and their patchwork bodies (and the genially macabre tone of their dialogue and actions), but stuff that only gets bleaker and more disturbing the more you think about it. All of those distress calls, unanswered. The dismembered Time Lords. The graveyard of dead TARDISes. Brrr... House, as voiced by Michael "Tony Blair/Brian Clough" Sheen, was an absolutely monstrous creation. An near-omnipotent thing with an endless capacity for cruelty, seemingly for no other reason than his/its own amusement. And probably the real "whoah - that's a bit strong!" moment for me - Rory's withered years-old corpse surrounded by wall after wall covered with embittered graffiti expressing his hatred for Amy. That it turned out just to be an illusion didn't really make it any better - the real Rory might never feel that way about Amy, no matter what happened, but clearly it's Amy's deep-rooted fear that he might. I think that shows very interesting insight into her character indeed.

If anything, that element could have been expanded and made more of. The Doctor-Idris relationship was the heart of the story, but the other elements that got glossed over such as Aunty and Uncle and their bizarre little world or Amy and Rory's scary flight through the TARDIS's dark heart, they could have been expanded upon. That would be one criticism of this story, although arguably that would have made the story a two-parter and I don't know if there was really enough material here for two whole parts. Another criticism, as already suggested, would be that the plot, such as it was, felt very slight, and the resolution was really just a way of bringing the story to a close - there was no real tension or cleverness there. And when are the poor Ood going to catch a break? For that matter, while Eleven's trembling yet understated emotion at the fate of all those Time Lords was certainly a standout moment, the deaths of Aunty and Uncle and, let's be honest, Idris's de facto death to allow the TARDIS's "soul" to occupy her body didn't seem to exercise him much. I think Lawrence Miles actually makes this point, and a good point it is - dismiss him as a bitter bile-monger at your peril! Maybe Aunty and Uncle had forfeited their right to such consideration by being willing, even gleeful, servants of House's agenda (not that they really seemed to have much choice in the matter), but Idris, the person not the TARDIS-receptacle...?

To be honest, though, such "lapses" on the Doctor's part in S5 and S6 don't really bother me that much - Eleven's at times flawed ethics seem somehow truer and more Doctorly to me than Ten's bleeding-heart hypocrisy. Discuss.

So yes, not a perfect episode by any means, and it was never going to win any awards for plotting, but still a very, very good story I would argue, and Mr Gaiman may come again if he'd like. ;D And quite apart from whether it was objectively "good" or not, it made me smile. It made me more than smile, it made me squee. I enjoyed it on a very basic, straightforward, purely gleeful level without any angst or anxiety or wanting to write angry letters to my MP. And in the post-Journey's End era of NuWho I think that's quite enough for me to count that one as a win, really. :)

EDIT: Looks like Lawrence Miles has in the meantime actually deleted his blog post that I link to in this post, which is something he does sometimes. So that's why the link doesn't work any more.

Comments

[greatbriton.livejournal.com]

This was a very good read and actually made me think different to some aspects of the episode. But overall I liked that you referred to it as a "change of pace". and I found it refreshing to have such a good episode that wasn't so entangled in Moffat's seasonal arc in a huge way. The "Curse of the Black Spot" was alright enough but it missed the mark in a few areas that this episode hit upon.

it does manage to be game-changing and canon-busting, in some quite interesting ways, without actually changing the game or busting any "canon"

That's kind of why I love it so much. haha

I actually disagree with you in that I think the episode could have served better as a two-parter. maybe stretching the TARDIS getting a body over two episodes would have made it lose some of it's "awe" or what have you. But the weaknesses in not exploring the secondary characters could have been made into strengths if the story had been given more time. But as an hour episode I think Gaimen and the viewers, imo, would rather see more of the Doctor and the Idris (TARDIS) interact, which is what they gave us. And a two-parter would have given more room to find out more about HOUSE as well and why he's so bent on evil, it seems.

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think that the fact it was a stand-alone story that managed to be free of all the story-arcing and intrigue (mostly) while keeping the general quality up in a way that I was worried the "filler" stories wouldn't be able to do (and last week's indeed didn't). We need the rest of them to be this way, really.

And yes, the story didn't tell us anything we didn't already know really, but some of those things were things we didn't know we already knew, necessarily, if that makes any sense.

I think it could have been a two-parter, probably, if they'd made the nature of what was going on more of a mystery at the start and if they'd devoted more time to Rory and Amy in the TARDIS (maybe the bit where the TARDIS took off without the Doctor could be the halfway cliffhanger). But you know, it was good as it was, and we've seen too many two-parters in new Who that didn't have more than one-and-a-bit parts of story to them, so you know, that's a minor thing for me really. But yes, I guess they could have made it work if they'd wanted to. :)

[akashasheiress.livejournal.com]

Hey, your Larry Miles link is borked!

Well, I'll just start by saying that I haven't watched it yet, but I have no doubt that it's Very Good Indeed. That's pretty high praise coming from me, you know.:D

I do have to say, though, that I'm still completely against the idea of an anthropomorphic TARDIS and that it's highly unlikely that this episode is going to change my mind about that, no matter how good it is. Does the TARDIS really have to take the form of a humanoid female in order to ''prove'' the love between her and the Doctor? And what's with the obsession with the Doctor getting snogged in every other episode? Granted, Eleven doesn't get smooched quite as often as Ten, but still...

I agree that Matt Smith is a very fine actor, but Eleven himself pretty much lost much of the moral high-ground when he became BFFs with Churchill. From then on, every outraged statement he makes on behalf of JUSTICE and EQUALITY will me met with a don't-make-me-sick-into-my-own-scorn expression from me. *sips Molotov cocktail*

Am I one of the latter extremes you mentioned? D:

P.S. I happen to be a fan of Gaiman's better half. In fact, I think of him as ''Amanda Palmer's husband''.

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

Haha - yeah, looks like Mr Miles has actually deleted his latest blog post in the time elapsed since I posted this. As is his way. ;D

I think you'd like it, maybe. Certainly, the threat of it proved to be much more worrying than the actual story. I don't think there's anything particularly upsetting canon-wise or character wise. And I'm quite glad Romana turned out not to be in it, for the reasons we've discussed before.

Funny thing, Larry Miles's main gripe is that he thought of the idea of a humanoid TARDIS first (in his EDA novels) and that Gaiman's done it wrong, because Gaiman's a talentless hack or something. Not really one of his better thought out posts, which might be why he's taken it down. I do kind of agree that the love between the Doctor and the TARDIS isn't in any sense sexual love (I hope!) so having to have her in human form to "confirm" it (when as I say, it's pretty blinking obvious by now to anybody who's been paying attention at all over the past 47 odd years) shouldn't be necessary. However, if you wanted to write a quite gloriously indulgent and fanwanky story *about* the Doctor and the TARDIS and their love, which this pretty much is, then it's one way to go about it.

Well, that's certainly a strong argument, and I think it says a lot about the political and social wrongheadedness of NuWho and 21st century popular culture in general. Seven and Ace would not have stood for it. Let's face it - Nine or Ten would not have reacted any different to Churchill (RTD wouldn't have even thought of writing it any other way), although maybe Eccleston, not being backward in coming forward, would refuse to act it. Maybe.

But no, the latter extreme I was talking about are the people who seem to have some deep and abiding dislike for Gaiman for no other reason that he's quite popular and people like him, and therefore anyone who liked this story has just been taken in by Gaiman - the charlatan! Which, believe it or not, I've seen more than one person trying to say. And not always as amusingly as Mr Miles before he took his post down ;D

And why do people dislike Amanda Palmer? Is it just fanboys/girls unable to parse the idea of "their hero" loving another human being more than them?

[pitry.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Haven't watched the episode so I won't comment on most of it (other than mentioning I have become quite disillusioned with Gaiman for his own writing in the past decade or so - the last book of his I REALLY loved was American Gods, and even that one had quite a few problems) but about the Churchill/ Nixon thing...

You're right that if Nine or Ten would have met them they would have probably been written to react in as excited a way as Eleven did. However, I don't think that the fact they didn't encounter them should be discounted this easily. RTD-era episodes did take place in WW2, for example, and he had quite a number of historical celebrities appearing in the show... what I'm trying to say is that it's possible Nine and Ten didn't meet these leaders exactly because RTD didn't want to write them reacting this way to them. It's just as much of a speculation of course, not anything we'd ever know, of course. And it might have been dumb luck that it simply didn't occur to RTD to have the Doctor meet up these people... but it might not have been.

/ramble

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

I'd freely hold my hands up at this point and say I can't judge Gaiman's body of work as a whole, only the bits I've read, none of which I think are particularly recent. I liked what I've read, and some of the elements in this story made sense in the context of what I've read, but I can make no sweeping statements on how good/bad he might have been in recent years or even as a whole. I prefer Terry Pratchett, if I'm honest. ;D

You could well be right about that - I tend not to have too much forgiveness in my heart for Rusty post-End of Time, as you can probably tell ;D. I think if historical characters are going to appear in new Who, then it's more or less a given that we're going to get a much-simplified verion and if they're a supposed historical "goodie" then the Doctor's going to be quite keen on them. I actually think Nixon was one of the better portrayals so far, because you know, the natural approach would probably be to have him as a bit of a villain, and in the first part of the two-parter anyway they kept it a bit more shades of grey. I think Moffat lost a lot of that nuance in the second part, what with him "amusingly" appearing from the TARDIS to give NASA guys pep talks and stuff.

But yeah, it would be a savvy RTD sort of thing to do to avoid those sorts of controversies by just not having controversial (or at least controversial to people other than historians) historical figures in his series. And you know, in light of the Churchill thing, not actually all that bad an idea really. :D

[akashasheiress.livejournal.com]

No, I think I will like it. I want to watch Curse of the Black Spot first, though, and I can't find a good spot to *ahem* it from.

Well, I wasn't trying to suggest that Nine or Ten would have acted differently. It's just that the Doctor who happened to show affinity towards a borderline fascist politician just happened Eleven. I would have felt the same way if Nine or Ten had been the one to do it (and Ten did lose any moral high-ground, too, for different reasons). It's just that I can't suspend disbelief and pretend that the Doctor doesn't know about Churchill's more atrocious beliefs and actions. I'm trying to break my head to come up with a way to handwave it. It could be an interesting subject for a fic. When did the Doctor lose his social conscience? I'm just saying that I don't find Eleven any more morally tolerable than Ten because Eleven showed HUGE hypocrisy in that episode. The worst part is that we're not supposed to think of that way because we're meant to agree with Eleven that Churchill was the cat's pyjamas.

As for Amanda Palmer: well, the reasons differ, I think. Some have a problem with some of her more problematic musical output. You can find more details on that here. I completely agree with that criticism, FWIW. Then there are, as you said, the people who simply seem to have a problem with Gaiman falling in love. I mean, they use arguments like ''She's his mid-life crisis'' and that she's not Good Enough for an artiste like Gaiman etc. but a lot of it just comes down to good old-fashioned misogyny and ageism, IMO.

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

Ah yeah, good thinking. Curse of the Black Spot kills 45 minutes if nothing else.

Oh yeah, I mean, you know I agree with you on the idea of the Doctor palling around with the likes of Winston. I just think it's like a meta failing - sort of real-world fail rather than anything particularly to do with Eleven or even Moffat. But as you say, it happened on Eleven's watch. Pitry makes a good point above regarding maybe RTD being a bit more savvy on this sort of thing than I give him credit for. And I agree the worst part is we, the audience, are assumed to be so politically and historically ignorant and/or so invested in the consensus version of Churchill's role in WW2 that is so prevalent here in the UK that we'll just swallow it, and indeed not even think about it. So yeah, they've hugely damaged the Doctor's moral credibility just out of pure laziness and ignorance. I honestly don't even think it's a conscious political preference on the part of Moffat or whoever - I'd be very surprised if someone of Moffat's general demographic didn't vote Labour - it's just pure dumb ignorance and a symptom of what's wrong with our popular culture.

Well, that is rather bizarre... Hmm... But still, I do get the impression from what little I've seen that the other motivations are pretty prevalent too, and that lots of fanboy types who couldn't care less about ableism have kind of jumped on the bandwagon as an excuse for their wankery. Fans, eh?

[shannonsequitur.livejournal.com]

This is a good post and you should feel good.

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you :D

[shannonsequitur.livejournal.com]

Well, you manage to articulate my thoughts on Neil Gaiman, Romana, and the general "for the fans" nature of the episode way better than I do/did.

[sciathan-file.livejournal.com]

The plot didn't really bother me, to be honest because it was such a change of pace and it was, on the whole, character driven.

Also, I'm with you on the fact that it wasn't game-changing in the ways one would have thought it would be. Although I don't think DW has canon in the way most shows do (I look at what is "canonical" from Doctor to Doctor and even then, from whoever is the showrunner at the time...).

That it turned out just to be an illusion didn't really make it any better - the real Rory might never feel that way about Amy, no matter what happened, but clearly it's Amy's deep-rooted fear that he might. I think that shows very interesting insight into her character indeed.

I hadn't considered it like that at all. Most people seem to be fixated on Amy's relationship with Rory and where the Doctor does or doesn't fit in without really looking at the debt that Amy really owes to Rory. Also, going back the first episodes wherein the Doctor asks Rory about his Roman days, I think it is significant that is wasn't Amy and that they never really had that conversation to my knowledge.

In terms of the deaths, Idris is the only one that really bothered me. In terms of Auntie and Uncle, they had a choice and made it. And, really, their life was premised on scavenging the lives of others, so I don't look down on Eleven for his lack of concern. In terms of Idris, I simply don't know anything about her and am thus unfit to judge. Although, the fact we know nothing about her in the first place is an interesting narrative decision in and of itself.

And, really (and I consider Ten my Doctor), I think Eleven's flawed morality is much more in keeping with the Doctor's overall character from regeneration to regeneration than Ten's "I can kill them if I talk to them first because I am GODLIKE!" stance. The Doctor is not a perfect being and he has his own set of priorities. For example, if it came to preserving the human shell or his TARDIS's matrix, I'm not sure he'd choose the shell.

Just to let you know, I still think this is the most sane analysis I have seen for all your caveats about parading fanwanky topics. :)

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

No, the plot was definitely a secondary consideration in this. And I was actually glad about the lack of game-changing tbh - the last thing we need is writers thinking they can just come in and start messing with the basic premises of the show. I think it's to Gaiman's credit as a writer and a Who fan that he took the approach he did. Although I agree "canon" is an overrated concept where Who is concerned - there's no way you can reconcile all of the retcons and errors and just plain making it up as they went along even from the television stories, even before you start thinking about other media, so I do tend to take a bit of a pick-and-choose attitude to it myself.

I don't know why, but I just assumed the illusions must in some way be coming out of Amy's head, just because the fake Rory seemed to know so much like the 2,000 year wait etc. But thinking on it I don't know if there was any actual evidence to support this interpretation in the episode - I think I was just using my sf-spidey sense and putting two and two together, although I could well have made five... ;D But I agree, there is a lot more to Amy and Rory's relationship than just their weird triangle with the Doctor - she does owe him, and she's probably deeply aware of that and worried about it, even if only on a subconscious level. So yeah, those kids need to talk more, I'd say.

As you say, narrative choices - I'm sure Idris, the original Idris, was not a central concern in writing this. I don't know when we started holding up the Doctor and Who writers as paragons of compassion and moral virtue and feeling wronged when they fail to live up to that, but I'm starting to find it irksome. I don't think Eleven has done anything really that any of the old Who Doctors wouldn't have done, up to and including the Churchill thing (Seven wouldn't, although he did once forge his signature, but you can see Three smoking cigars and namedropping with old Winston - I can anyway!). Not so Ten. Or rather, Ten didn't do anything other Doctor's wouldn't have done, but the way he did them and the way he justified them...I think he probably needed an intervention from his other incarnations or something. ;D

Thank you, anyway! And you know the "sorry about the fanwank" thing is pure hypocrisy, because I then immediately follow it up with...another load of fanwank! ;D

[clocketpatch]

As far as the Churchill thing and Three goes... Three was apparently very good friends with Chairman Mao.

The Doctor's grasp on human history, human nature, and politics is, I think, sometimes a bit shakier than he'd have you believe...

[sciathan-file.livejournal.com]

From now on I am simply going to call Doctor Who canon "Cafeteria Canon" and take what I like. As long as there is a blue box and a madman, everything seems good.

One day, they were get to the nitty gritty of that relationship beyond the teasing about the love triangle aspect. And yes, the talking. I love the spaceships, but I also love the talking (and in the case of the last episode, talking spaceships).

Apparently, from what I've read, there was a lot more about the dysfunctional little family unit, but they cut to the chase to get to the interesting aspects of the narrative. And, as clocketpatch eloquently states, what is understood to be proper from certain standpoints of human history/morality is not necessarily a component of the Doctor's viewpoint.

Oh, Ten. I think I can write more than a few essays on him. Although, perhaps because I basically met him first, I'm a lot more forgiving of him. But, the fact that I then went on to meet Two in "The Mind Robber" was pretty much a study in contrasts. Now, however, I have the image of Two doing an intervention and it is simply a bit ridiculous...

[clocketpatch]

Well, I'm now happy that I read Larry's blog post a few hours after the episode rather than a few weeks down the line as I usually do, because the questions he raised about Auntie, Uncle and Idris's deaths (which you mentioned also) have quite stuck with me.

I want to know who these people were originally and how they ended up in this desolate bubble universe. Why do they masquerade as a family? What about Nephew Ood? He really makes me wonder because if the whole family slid down the plug hole together then there's only one position in that family Nephew could've had... and it wouldn't have been a paid one.

I wonder about Idris and why she didn't have a family name. Why her name was so close to TARDIS.

Most of all, I wonder, if for each Time Lord lured to that rock there had to be a human shell to plop their TARDIS Matrix into then, well... Idris died from the transfer. She also seemed to be relatively complete in comparison to Auntie and Uncle. Was Idris a construct? Was she a Time Lord? Was she the walking receptacle that was used for every TARDIS soul... and if so... was she a TARDIS before her mind was blown out to accommodate the soul of the Doctor's magic box?

I like an episode that makes you think. I liked this episode. I very much liked your commentary on it which is, I think, one of the sanest best thought out reactions I've read. If not the sanest and most thought out (but I wouldn't want to swell your head).

The thought that the "Kill Amy. Hate Amy." graffiti was something out of Amy's head honestly hadn't occurred to me. At first I'd been horrified at Rory's despair and lashing out. It seemed believable to me, since love and hate are both such passionate emotions (though I didn't completely buy it, because, well, Rory). Then I dismissed it as House being a bastard. But you're right. He must've been drawing on something. A telepathic being like that. No one ever told him how long Rory waited.

Which also makes me wonder what Rory saw when he was separated from Amy. Especially since I'm still not completely convinced that the first Rory, the one who waited for hours, wasn't real.

More thought for food (er, or maybe the other way around).

The fanwank and references were lovely and the dialogue was sweet as... a very sweet thing salted with flakes of wonder (that metaphor isn't my best, but sue me). The TARDIS calling Rory pretty made me happy inside.

[clocketpatch]

Eleven and the TARDIS... I'm one of those shippers who punched the air. My only complaint is that this episode sort of implied that, while the Doctor and the TARDIS have always acknowledged each other, they've never communicated before. I thoroughly refute that. In my fanon they're telepathically chatting all the time. I did see someone else on my F'list (and I can't think of the name, shame on me) noting that the whole "TARDISes can't be fitted with a means to communicate" thing may very well be something which the Doctor has been taught which isn't necessarily true - the Time Lords weren't the most ethical of people and it's a lot easier to enslave an entire sentient race if you don't have to hear them talk back.

It's a troubling thought.

On a more cheerful note, hearing the TARDIS refer to the Doctor as her thief and saying that she stole him made me grin: "Borrowing implies an intent to return. What makes you think I would ever give you back?" Made me smile, and made my gut twist. I'm not sure wife is the way to describe their relationship, neither are they mother and child. Still, the whole TARDIS-stealing-him thing somewhat canonizes a main plot point in my Doctor origin fic and it's always good when things are anti-jossed.

And, finally... I'll admit that I'd never heard of this Gaiman fellow before it was announced that he was writing an episode for series 5 and fanon exploded with their polarized reactions. I thought to myself: "I ought to check this fellow out" and between then and now have managed to read every single thing he's written with the exception of a few children's books and the Sandman comics (which are, admittedly, a pretty big chunk of his work). I like his style, but agree that he's become a bit stuck in it. Still, it melded with Who nicely (perhaps because it's been, at least partially inspired by it).

This was a definite love letter to the show and I think it will go down among the great episodes. Gaiman can definitely write again if he so chooses. I will not complain. I'll just sit back and be glad to be part of a fandom with so many quality writers in it (even if it has some, er, less quality writers as well... but really, it's Who - would we have it any other way?)

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

I agree - while I can see why the supporting characters didn't get much development in the context of this story, it would have been nice to have it because they were interesting characters and there were a lot of unanswered questions. I think one of the good aspects of this story, though, was that these really did feel like they had answers - you sort of got the impression that there was more going on below the surface of the story, that those omissions weren't just plot holes or thoughtlessness on the part of the writer.

Maybe Idris was a Time Lord, one of the House's previous victims, somehow scrubbed clean for use as a receptacle? That's pretty horrible thought actually - only a little bit more horrible than my initial idea that House was just continually recycling the body parts of his victims over and over - creating bodies, letting them die, building new ones from the remains... O.o

As I've said elsewhere, there was a lot like that in this story - nasty, nasty stuff that gets worse the more you think about it. So many unpleasant implications, and what's more from reading some of Gaiman's other stuff I'm sure they were probably all intentional. Having said that, I do see how what people who are more familiar with Gaiman's work than I have said could be true - just on the basis of a limited sample, I'm thinking he might be a bit of a one-trick pony. It's a very, very, very good one trick, I'd say, but I could see how it would be difficult keeping it fresh over the course of twenty years or so. And of course, when you become as famous as Gaiman with the following he has, if you ever do try to change your game and freshen things up a bit, you have a million fanboys whinging that your last book wasn't what they've come to expect from reading all your other books... D: I need to catch up with Sandman, though, I really really do, because by all accounts it is the real deal.

Regarding "Kill Amy" etc - as I said in a comment above, I assumed that stuff was somehow feeding on Amy's inner fears because, well, that's the kind of thing you expect in Who and in TV sf in general, but I realise on reflection that I have no evidence for it whatsoever. But it does seem implied by the general nature of the proceedings - it seems like the kind of thing House, gleeful sadist that he/it is, would do. And it certainly does say something about Amy and Rory's relationship and make you think about some of the things he's been through for her and the guilt that she might feel somewhere inside, even if she's not the sort of person to feel it consciously.

As to what Rory could have seen? Well, it may be trite, but I'd imagine his equivalent would be Amy and the Doctor together, laughing at him or maybe not even thinking about him at all. Something that said Amy and the Doctor never missed him when he was away from them, or that she didn't really care that he'd waited 2,000 years. Something like that. Or maybe he's just really, really scared of spiders or something? XD

Oh I agree - I don't see how the TARDIS and the Doctor can't not have been communicating during their time together, but undoubtedly in more subtle ways than conversation. I agree they probably have a telepathic connection, but maybe it doesn't take the form of words - maybe it's just feelings or moods or more subtle indicators like the Cloister Bell. I think that Eleven was overcome with emotion, though, just to have things he'd always known or felt in his heart(s) communicated out loud. Which is a bit meta, if you think about it, because it seemed that this story was trying to do a similar thing to us long-term fans... :D

And isn't it the best feeling when something you've always believed in your fanon or maybe speculated on in fic is confirmed on screen? Doesn't happen often enough to me - but then my fanon is pretty weird, some of it. ;D But see the previous paragraph for more thoughts on that.

But yes, it was a lovely story in so many ways. It was strangely feel-good in the end for a story with so many bits of darkness in it, and brim full of Who-love. So yes, Gaiman can have another go if he wants. I'd like to see him do something a bit meatier next time - a two-parter or something with real tension and consequences. That'd be great to see.

[john_amend_all]

From the discussion on Gallifrey Base:

Neil Gaiman wrote this in the Q&A hosted by the Guardian earlier today:

You know, in early drafts we learned a lot more about Idris, and she was imprisoned on the asteroid, and she didn't become the TARDIS until about 20 minutes in. But it only got interesting once she became the TARDIS. So we moved that stuff up.

So much Auntie and Uncle etc backstory in my head and in previous scripts — and there was even a lot more that we shot. Adrian and Elizabeth were funny and creepy at the same time, and they had dialogue that indicated that normally the TARDISes when placed in human form say a few words then burn up and die: what our TARDIS did in Idris's body was unheard of. But then, it was too long, so those scenes, along with many wonderful Uncle and Auntie lines, went away.

So yes, each TARDIS needed a different human receptacle.

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

Well, that makes it a bit clearer - presumably they had a much larger population originally, then, or was the House building new bodies as and when from bits of dead Time Lords? Doesn't bear thinking about, really...

It sounds like there might have been enough script to make this a two-parter after all, had scheduling and Moffat's story arc allowed. Which would have been interesting, because watching it there were definitely areas of the story that could have been expanded on and explored in more detail. And I thought Auntie and Uncle were great, in a creepy sort of way, so I would have liked to see a bit more of them.

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Um, did you miss the Doctor CRYING after Idris faded away?! I can't see how you can say it didn't bother him when he had actual tears (and they didn't seem like crocodile tears like some of Ten's did).

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

No, no I saw him crying! :D I thought he did it very well, about 100% less annoying than Ten, and it was very nice indeed to see how affected the Doctor was (and the last little bit after that too was excellent). No, I was thinking of Idris, the actual Idris, before she got possessed by the TARDIS. Presumably she was an existing being after the fashion of Auntie and Uncle, not that we really knew anything about her. It's not really a huge point, I was just trying to think of something a bit more interesting to say than "I LOVED IT!", which was my first instinct I can tell you! ;D

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Well let's be fair - the Doctor didn't know anything about who Idris was before she was "possessed" by the heart of the TARDIS since he didn't see it happen to her.

Even *we* the audience don't really know much about her, except for the fact that she was scared of it happening...

[ginbitch.livejournal.com]

The most perceptive commentary I've read in a long while - you said pretty much everything I was thinking including lots of things I didn't know I was thinking until you said them.

What I've been loving about Moffat-Who is the depth of love for the _whole_ canon - not just just the broadcast episodes but the books, and the big finish productions which kept the flame alive for so long. Idris being a tardis was so much in keeping with that. River Song as a Benny/Iris Wildthyme mash-up is another one (for me at least, I don't know where you stand on that one). The balance between little nods and revelations for die-hard fans and some kick-ass plots (sure, not all hit all the right buttons (and I'm looking at you, Mr Black Spot) but a lot do) makes me feel the series is in very safe hands.

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much! :)

I'd go along with that. I like that Moffat seems more comfortable with acknowledging the old series and various other bits of lore than RTD did. I mean, RTD did get better about that the longer he went on, but at first it wasn't even made clear whether the old series even existed or whether New Who was a reboot - I don't think it was till Human Nature and Ten's book that we had that confirmed. So yes, I like that a lot. And I do think that the benchmark for S5 and S6 is a bit higher than the previous era - sure, it's not perfect and there's still the occasional poor story, but overall for me it has a much higher hit rate than the Ten era did. And I'm really liking Matt Smith as Eleven too. So all in all, it's entertaining me more than it was in the last couple of Ten seasons and I hope it's going to continue as it has been. Of course all of that is my personal opinion - I'm not making any objective statement as to quality or otherwise, rather what works for me personally. But yes... :)