The End of Time... part one
Dec. 26th, 2009 01:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lesmisloonyStill sorting through my feelings... I woke up today and just burst into tears. Screw you, Russell T Davies, and your evil ability to manipulate my happiness.
Okay... well, I watched it twice last night. The first time I watched it with Stacyfacy and spent the whole time rolling my eyes at the crummy special effects. Specifically that one time the Master jetted up into the air with that... Sylar energy... shooting out of his hands and then twirled away. If that one effect (and the part where everyone changed) had been better, I would have probably liked the entire episode more.
Anyway, then after Stacers left I watched it again. I liked it more at 4am when I was all alone. I knew what to expect that time, I guess. But the whole episode is rubbish next to that one scene with Wilf in the café. I showed that to my mom this morning and then burst into tears. That's Rusty at his best.
I admit I freaked out when I saw that giant Star Wars room of Time Lords (though I kind of knew they would come back), but what does this mean for the show? I haven't seen enough Old Who, but... well, maybe now that he's not the only one Eleven won't have to be as angsty as Ten. And the show can be light-hearted and fun again. But dangit, Ten, why did you have to make me resent Eleven? "Some new man goes sauntering off" or whatever. Gah. And why is Ten clinging so hard to this life? He wasn't so upset about regenerating when he was Nine. Or even when he was quasi-regenerating that one time when Cloney got born.
Ten made me really uncomfortable at the beginning of the episode. It wasn't even the good kind of uncomfortable like at the end of Waters of Mars (which, by the way, is probably my favourite of the specials): it was "I'm not even sure I like the Doctor at all right now and that's not okay for me to think" uncomfortable.
Wilf... I don't know. Wilf better not be a Time Lord. And, can I just say? I'm a little angry that all of series four was "ohh, Donna, you're so important! You're the most important woman in the universe!" and all that meant was "Donna contains a fraction of the Doctor's awesomeness for a second but then her brain explodes because she's just a human, so she's not important anymore." It's about time we saw someone who was awesome AND completely human. Though when that weird telly lady talked about Wilf, she said he was too late for the war, which to me shouts Time War (though perhaps it just meant whatever war caused Wilf to salute people the way he does).
Also, I feel like the plot is... over-reaching? Is that a word? Like, it would really be enough if the episode was just about the Master taking over humanity. I don't need this end of time stuff as well, because I'm pretty sure we already covered that (and better) at the end of series four. I mean, okay, technically that was the end of the universe, but whatever. And the whole "something is accelerating your species" thing has been done and done, right? So why bother? Why not just let it be the end of humanity rather than the end of time? Because you and me both know that time is not any more likely to end than the human race.
There's something about the Master that really bothers me the first time I see him. Like, when I first saw the end of series three I thought I was seeing the worst thing ever. I HATED the Master and was so upset that the Doctor was failing so hard. But after I knew the Doctor would be okay I was able to watch the episode again and giggle at the madness. The first time I watched The End of Time (part one) I just thought it was stupid. The flashy skeleton effect and the zoomy flight struck me as ridiculous, but the second time I watched it I accepted the whole return-gone-wrong thing and I felt much better about the episode as a whole. I really think it was the weird special effect that turned me off. Think how much scarier it would have been if his head wasn't flashing or if he just ran at those two homeless guys REALLY REALLY FAST. Not, like, Twilight running... more like New Moon running. You know. I mean, we get that he's gone wrong because John Simm is a good actor and he's eating everything in sight.
I don't even know what to say about the Obama stuff. Well, first off, Rusty, you do know that people don't make big important telly speeches on Christmas in America, right? I mean, I get that the Queen does a speech on Christmas if you're British, but it doesn't work like that around here. And... the actor who played Obama? I don't even know. The Harold Saxon episodes make me uncomfortable because of how much I can identify with those people who voted Saxon... to be honest, I wasn't initially sure why I was so strongly pro-Obama myself until I went to see him speak, and by that time I had already, like, journeyed to South Carolina and canvassed for him. So I didn't like seeing the actual Obama used in an episode that contained the Master, but luckily we didn't go there today. And since when is Obama's policy responsible for the well-being of Sir Digby Chicken Caesar and Ginger, lords of a British junkyard? (Did anyone else think of That Mitchell and Webb Look there? Or am I the only one who watches that show?) So yeah, I didn't much like the Obama stuff being thrown in until I was sure that it was just for show and they weren't making some giant terrible statement.
Other than the café scene, my favourite part of the whole episode might have been the Doctor yelling "Shimmer!" Or Wilf finally getting into the TARDIS. He deserves to be a companion more than anyone.
I await January 1st with terror and... well, dissatisfaction.
Also, this:
Okay... well, I watched it twice last night. The first time I watched it with Stacyfacy and spent the whole time rolling my eyes at the crummy special effects. Specifically that one time the Master jetted up into the air with that... Sylar energy... shooting out of his hands and then twirled away. If that one effect (and the part where everyone changed) had been better, I would have probably liked the entire episode more.
Anyway, then after Stacers left I watched it again. I liked it more at 4am when I was all alone. I knew what to expect that time, I guess. But the whole episode is rubbish next to that one scene with Wilf in the café. I showed that to my mom this morning and then burst into tears. That's Rusty at his best.
I admit I freaked out when I saw that giant Star Wars room of Time Lords (though I kind of knew they would come back), but what does this mean for the show? I haven't seen enough Old Who, but... well, maybe now that he's not the only one Eleven won't have to be as angsty as Ten. And the show can be light-hearted and fun again. But dangit, Ten, why did you have to make me resent Eleven? "Some new man goes sauntering off" or whatever. Gah. And why is Ten clinging so hard to this life? He wasn't so upset about regenerating when he was Nine. Or even when he was quasi-regenerating that one time when Cloney got born.
Ten made me really uncomfortable at the beginning of the episode. It wasn't even the good kind of uncomfortable like at the end of Waters of Mars (which, by the way, is probably my favourite of the specials): it was "I'm not even sure I like the Doctor at all right now and that's not okay for me to think" uncomfortable.
Wilf... I don't know. Wilf better not be a Time Lord. And, can I just say? I'm a little angry that all of series four was "ohh, Donna, you're so important! You're the most important woman in the universe!" and all that meant was "Donna contains a fraction of the Doctor's awesomeness for a second but then her brain explodes because she's just a human, so she's not important anymore." It's about time we saw someone who was awesome AND completely human. Though when that weird telly lady talked about Wilf, she said he was too late for the war, which to me shouts Time War (though perhaps it just meant whatever war caused Wilf to salute people the way he does).
Also, I feel like the plot is... over-reaching? Is that a word? Like, it would really be enough if the episode was just about the Master taking over humanity. I don't need this end of time stuff as well, because I'm pretty sure we already covered that (and better) at the end of series four. I mean, okay, technically that was the end of the universe, but whatever. And the whole "something is accelerating your species" thing has been done and done, right? So why bother? Why not just let it be the end of humanity rather than the end of time? Because you and me both know that time is not any more likely to end than the human race.
There's something about the Master that really bothers me the first time I see him. Like, when I first saw the end of series three I thought I was seeing the worst thing ever. I HATED the Master and was so upset that the Doctor was failing so hard. But after I knew the Doctor would be okay I was able to watch the episode again and giggle at the madness. The first time I watched The End of Time (part one) I just thought it was stupid. The flashy skeleton effect and the zoomy flight struck me as ridiculous, but the second time I watched it I accepted the whole return-gone-wrong thing and I felt much better about the episode as a whole. I really think it was the weird special effect that turned me off. Think how much scarier it would have been if his head wasn't flashing or if he just ran at those two homeless guys REALLY REALLY FAST. Not, like, Twilight running... more like New Moon running. You know. I mean, we get that he's gone wrong because John Simm is a good actor and he's eating everything in sight.
I don't even know what to say about the Obama stuff. Well, first off, Rusty, you do know that people don't make big important telly speeches on Christmas in America, right? I mean, I get that the Queen does a speech on Christmas if you're British, but it doesn't work like that around here. And... the actor who played Obama? I don't even know. The Harold Saxon episodes make me uncomfortable because of how much I can identify with those people who voted Saxon... to be honest, I wasn't initially sure why I was so strongly pro-Obama myself until I went to see him speak, and by that time I had already, like, journeyed to South Carolina and canvassed for him. So I didn't like seeing the actual Obama used in an episode that contained the Master, but luckily we didn't go there today. And since when is Obama's policy responsible for the well-being of Sir Digby Chicken Caesar and Ginger, lords of a British junkyard? (Did anyone else think of That Mitchell and Webb Look there? Or am I the only one who watches that show?) So yeah, I didn't much like the Obama stuff being thrown in until I was sure that it was just for show and they weren't making some giant terrible statement.
Other than the café scene, my favourite part of the whole episode might have been the Doctor yelling "Shimmer!" Or Wilf finally getting into the TARDIS. He deserves to be a companion more than anyone.
I await January 1st with terror and... well, dissatisfaction.
Also, this:
