Doctor Who 4×06

May 12th, 2008 12:05am by rusty-halo | 44 Comments »

Doctor Who 4×06: The Doctor’s Daughter

I liked this episode a lot, but I’m not sure I have much to say about it, probably because it didn’t really explore a lot of new territory. New Who really likes to revisit the same themes again and again from slightly different angles. I don’t mind; it gives them more opportunity to explore the nuances and contradictions of the issues they address.

I continue to love the Doctor’s anti-violence attitude, which I talked a lot about last week. I like that you see even more clearly here that’s it’s a reaction to his experience in the Time War. He’s not talking out of his ass; he knows war sucks because he’s been there. And he knows that hurting others eats you inside because it happened to him.

I like the anti-war theme, and the idea that a lot of conflict is due to the distortion of history through myth. It was a nice twist that the war had only been going on for seven days. (I assume that this episode’s tie to the seasonal arc is the recurring theme of mythology, and the Doctor creating mythology. Well, that and more mentions of the Time War.)

The aspect I liked most in this episode was the emphasis on choice. Jenny was born to be a soldier, but she learned from the Doctor and decided for herself not to kill. Nurture over nature. Yay free will! (And the Doctor demonstrating it? Pointing a gun at the man who murdered his daughter, and choosing not to shoot? OMG. I adore seeing the Doctor’s dark side. And I love that, in the end, he’s better than it.)

I liked that we got to see some actual acting from Freema Agyeman. Martha was totally superfluous to this episode (okay, she shed some light on the Hath; I fail to see why this requires Martha) but we got to see her being resourceful and tough, and we got more of a feel for her emotional struggle here than in her entire walked-the-earth-for-a-year arc. She’s got the worst companion luck, doesn’t she? I wish she didn’t think her experience applied to everyone, though; her “you’ll learn” attitude toward Donna was patronizing and annoying. (And could the “twirling her engagement ring from her perfect muscular boyfriend who’s saving starving children in Africa” be any more ridiculous?)

I love that Donna said she wanted to stay “forever.” It’s not just some stupid fancy of Rose’s; there is nothing wrong with wanting to spend your life traveling in time and space! I loved that the theme of series two was “the Doctor is worth the monsters,” and I’m worried that this season it’s more like “spend more than five minutes with the Doctor and you will die horribly or at best have your family tortured for a year.” Sheesh. I miss the “yay adventure” theme, and the happiness, and the idea that living an extraordinary life is worth the sacrifice.

I continue to love Donna. Everyone’s got a strength; hers is apparently Super!Temp skills. And she applies them to save the world. Yay Donna. :) I like that the show doesn’t have one paradigm of what type of person can be a hero; you don’t have to be highly educated or an action hero, you just need to be willing to go for it and apply whatever you are good at to the situation. It hearkens back to Rose using her gymnastics ability to save the day in “Rose.”

I also liked that Donna was able to get the Doctor to open up about his issues with Jenny. She pushes, and even though she’s wrong about what’s bothering him, the fact that she won’t let up is good for him. It forces him to face what he’s feeling and articulate it to her.

(BTW, the one thing I really didn’t like was the Doctor not letting Donna use her “feminine wiles” as a distraction. I don’t know how to read that except as a joke at Donna’s expense, that she’s not as traditionally attractive as Jenny and how silly of her to think otherwise. I’d love to be convinced otherwise; can someone come up with a non-offensive explanation for that scene?)

The writing of this episode was terribly awkward (Martha falling down the lightly sloping hill; the utter predictability of Jenny’s death; the magical resurrection [via the Source?]) but the heart of the episode was emotional, and I think they did a pretty good job there. The Doctor’s loss of Gallifrey is such a driving force at the center of his personality that it deserves lots of exploration; here they looked at it with specific focus on the children he lost. (Plus Tennant’s so good at the angst that they can’t seem to resist writing more.)

They did an amazing job showing the Doctor’s resistance to accepting Jenny, and how that was borne of the great loss he’d experienced. Thank god we have Donna to drag that explanation out of him. And, just, it’s so heartbreaking. That he backs away when he sees that she has two hearts. That he thinks part of him died with the children he lost. And then his growing connection with Jenny, the joy she brings him despite himself. Her death was utterly heartbreaking, because it was an echo of every loss we’ve already seen him experience: Gallifrey, Rose, the Master, Astrid, a gazillion single episode characters. What is this season trying to tell us? That the Doctor desperately needs connection, but that he’s like kryptonite to anyone who gets too close? Ow.

I like that they’re exploring how weary he is, how he’s been hurt so much that he just withdraws. It’s a realistic emotional reaction. Series one was about him coming out of his shell after the war and connecting with Rose and her family. In series two he was actually happy for a little while, but knew it couldn’t last. Series three was all about him sinking deeply into a depression caused by the loss of Rose and the unresolved Gallifrey angst that it brought up. In series three we saw him react by lashing out (dark!Doctor), but he was still trying to connect, just failing because of his issues. (He reached out to Donna, Martha, and Joan, but couldn’t give any of them what they needed.) In series four, he’s not lashing out, but is that an improvement or is that him just giving up? He seems to have withdrawn into himself so far that he’s not even trying to connect; he tells Mr. Copper that he travels alone, and he needs someone as pushy as Donna to force him to take on a companion at all. He freezes at being unable to save the Adipose victims, and freezes again when faced with the destruction of Pompeii. Unlike Donna, he doesn’t freak out in reaction to the pain of the Ood song, because he’s used to it. He’s resigned to being alone and having his heart broken. I am so, so happy that he has Donna to draw him out of his shell, to reignite his desire to travel, and to share the burden of the trauma he experiences. (And given what’s happened to everyone else he’s connected with, I’m really worried about Donna!)

I liked Jenny a lot. Georgia Moffett was entertaining and charismatic; I’m not ready to declare her the greatest actress in history, but I enjoyed her performance. She did a nice job of emulating Tennant’s mannerisms and ways of speaking. I liked that the character shared many of the Doctor’s qualities, but in less developed forms. If they bring her back, they’ve got a lot to explore. And I’m glad that she shares his enjoyment of new experiences and adventures.

That said, I think the angst in this episode was too much. I think where they went wrong is that a child is just too big of an issue. The emotional fallout has to be bigger than what they’re willing to deal with in one mid-season episode. And a character this important should have a multi-episode arc, in order to earn that huge emotion at the end. I suspect they felt they had to do it this way because they wanted to introduce her now and bring her back later (I’m unspoiled, but after that ending, surely they’re thinking recurring character, if not new companion or spin-off).

But that makes the Doctor’s huge angst here basically a result of sloppy writing. I’m going to have a hard time buying him going on to the next couple of episodes and being (I assume) his usual bright and chatty self. Even if he’s clearly repressing underneath, well, he’s always repressing underneath; something this huge needs a bit more. It was good that the losses of Rose and the Master both had season endings so that the Doctor could spend an unspecified amount of time dealing.

The net effect is that the Doctor keeps getting hurt again and again, to the point where he’s just weary and withdrawn and used to it. And right now it feels like too much of the same. The one good thing that’s happened for the Doctor personally this season is that Donna has pushed her way past his defenses and, despite himself, he’s let her in. But it doesn’t change the massive loss he keeps experiencing, which is down to the writers just never giving him a break.

It kind of reminds me of later seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, when I’d just throw my hands up and wonder what awful thing they were going to throw at the lead character next. It got kind of boring when there was nothing but relentless awfulness, and I didn’t like the idea that living an exciting life and saving the world on a regular basis will result in unrelenting gloom that will leave you longing for normalcy. It makes series two of Doctor Who seem like an anomaly in retrospect (it’s a TV anomaly in general, which is part of why I love it) because the main characters are actually happy for most of the season. They do fun things and enjoy themselves! They smile at each other and I genuinely feel the joy, and when bad things happen I feel better because I know they have each other.

Whereas in series three and series four, it’s been a lot of “what will they do to the Tenth Doctor next?” It’s starting to hurt a bit too much, although I do like the theme they’re exploring, the weariness, the hesitation to even try to connect. I think this episode was a misstep because it’s too much. But also, this is one piece in a larger puzzle, and I feel like we’ll get more out of it in the context of the season as a whole. So I’m mostly withholding judgment until I see how all this plays out in the end.

Current Mood: okay