|
OK Need I say it [River Song]Spoilers[/River Song]
Personally, I could do without the Time War. Not that I dismiss the concept – I feel it was very needed and necessary at the "time". But it's over now, and so was the plot arc. It had a perfect ending in "The End of Time", where we learn the Time Lords had become as bad as the Daleks… perhaps more so.
I liked that. I liked that a lot. I wish Davies had gone the whole hog and had the Time Lords conspiring with the Daleks in "The End of Time" (as he mentions in A Writer's Tale). To me, "The End of Time" justified the Doctor first leaving Gallifrey and choosing to become a renegade. He would never fit in with his own people.
As the show was keen on saying during the RTD era, "everything has its time", and the time of the Time War has passed.
It seems strange as well, that in "Night of the Doctor", Moffat seems keen to remind us that to those on the peripheral of the Time War, the Time Lords are seen as being as bad as the Daleks. (By the way, I cannot praise "Night of the Doctor" highly enough – Moffat starts by presenting us with the unexpected and continues to do so throughout the mini-episode. Does anyone think the pilot was an SSS agent? If so, it would make her comparison of the Time Lords to the Daleks even more damning.) After all, at the climax to "Day of the Doctor", he wants us to feel pleased that the Time Lords have been saved. He attempts to get around this dilemma by focusing on the children, but, like Frankenollie, it just doesn't seem to fit with the RTD era. Unlike some, I can sort of reconcile the events of "Day of the Doctor" with the events of "The End of Time" if I mentally squint. But I can't reconcile the emotion of "Day of the Doctor" with the emotion of "The End of Time".
But saying that, given the impossible brief, it would he hard to write a story about Doctor Who without focusing on something iconic in the show. The Time War is certainly the most iconic aspect of the show since its revival, and this something the majority of the audience would be familiar with, it has Daleks and it has Gallifrey. I can understand absolutely why this was chosen, there's very little else to choose from, perhaps the only other alternative would be to show exactly why the Doctor left Gallifrey with his granddaughter – but of course there's logistical issues with that which wouldn't be easy to solve.
So the Time War it was. And we actually got a thoughtful story out of it. I have no idea the extent of Eccleston's Doctor's original role. Would he have simply served the same purpose as Tennant and Smith, or would he have been "The War Doctor"? In the end, I don't think his absence mattered too much, because thematically the point still stood.
Billie Piper being the Moment's "conscience" was a flash of genius. After all, this is the role Rose played to Eccleston's Doctor, a conscience and a bridge for the battle scared Doctor to humanity. If, as the Doctor Who Magazine story "Hunters of the Burning Stone" stated, Ian and Barbara taught Hartnell's Doctor about humanity and how to be more human, it was Rose who gave Eccleston's a crash revision course. Plus, it allowed Tennant's Doctor to be taken from near the end of his life, where he travelled alone, still hurting from Donna's fate. A time when he was slowly, perhaps, appropriating some of the attitude of "The War Doctor". Smith's Doctor too has seemed to cross close to the line of "The War Doctor" at times. As much as I hated the idea of a "forgotten" incarnation (and you can tell, I still have some resistance, refusing to number the Doctors in this post) it actually makes a lot of sense. It makes Tennant and Smith's Doctors make more sense. It even makes Eccleston's Doctor make more sense and I believe it makes more sense for "the War Doctor" not to be Eccleston. After all, given a new regeneration after the Time War and a chance to start again, wouldn't it make sense this new Doctor would be as hands off and distant as possible? Who knows, perhaps Eccleston's refusal did the series a favour?
But, I'm not sure about the Zygons. I never was (and I still think these Zygons are a step down from the original design). The "B" story wasn't bad, but was, I feel, too humorous – I know that the special was to be watched by many more people than normal so had to walk the tightrope of mainstream appeal as well as backward looking celebration – but I would have preferred the Zygons to be more formidable, and the humour in the episode to have come from character – more interplay between the Doctors. It also sort of mirrored the main "A" storyline when it came to sacrificing London to save the planet, but then sort of fizzled out. Yes – the Zygons introduced the concept of the "Time Paintings" but… if that was Time Lord technology, how did they get the ability in the first place?
I know there's going to be many people – fans – who wanted something else, something more. More classic Doctors, more companions, more monsters. But I honestly think that Moffat has weaved a story much more nauanced and much better than anyone could have expected with his overloaded "shopping list". Daleks, Time Lords, UNIT, Time War, Tennant, Rose and Cameo's aside, we got plenty of visual and dialogue "nods to the past" and, remarkably, "nods to the future" too – including the upcoming Christmas special and Smith's upcoming death.
As for the search for Gallifrey – it doesn't really make sense if we consider the Time War as presented. I hope it's not the overriding goal of Capaldi's Doctor. I hope it just exists in the background, to be referenced when and if the story demands it. Because, the Doctor should always be an exile, apart from Gallifrey and… let's face it, what can they do when/if he finds it? We've already had The Time Lords are corrupt and there's not much drama or surprise in "everyone lived happily ever after."
_________________ Most of my Blu-ray collection some of my UK discs aren't on their database
|
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
. The Aztecs
