I may yet be the villain...
So, another series of Doctor Who has come & gone, and while I had originally planned to blog about it like none other, that, clearly, was not the case. I'm going to go and blame Obama for that, since apparently nobody takes responsibility for themselves anymore, and it's the cool thing to do.
With all of the Doctor Who fan art out there, I still couldn't find one with Obama.
But now it's out on the DVD, so let's have a chat about this wonderful show, shall we?
While I enjoyed Series 6 very much, very much indeed, I was left troubled & confused more often than not. Troubled in that the Doctor, as I've known him, was always a (mostly) peaceful man. Yes, sure, many of his enemies perished through his actions, and he is always ready for a fight when the Daleks are involved (especially seen in Baker's Destiny of the Daleks and, to a lesser extent, Eccleston's Dalek), but at his core, he's just a fun-loving adventurer who would like to see peace prevail throughout the whole of time & space...right?
It's not like he caused those exploooooooooh wait...
Now, we've seen the Eleventh be a bit of a badass in the past, giving into his hubris and calling out his enemies, essentially daring them to try something. Guess what? They did. You would think this would cause the Doctor to maybe reel it in a bit. Oh, wait, we're talking about the Doctor.
Where "reeling it in" means talking Nixon's seat.
It's no surprise (well, okay, it was) that we see the Doctor get killed in the Series 6 premiere. Don't worry, it's all wibbly-wobbly. Granted, the Doctor we see the rest of the Series doesn't know he's going to die (at least for a while), but he keeps putting his head out there, egging everybody on. And it culminates in the mid-season finale, A Good Man Goes to War. The Doctor amasses his own personal militia to save Amy & her baby.
Sh*t goes down, is what I'm saying.
One of the big reveals, well, in my mind, is that sure, doctor means "healer/wise man" in many of the universe's language, but it also means "mighty warrior," which perturbs the good Doctor a bit. But think about it: he's saved countless civilizations, even when it meant the eradication of others, and let's not forget that he's the sole survivor of the Great Time War. Not only did he kill the whole of the Dalek Empire (well, mostly, kind of), but to do so, he had to destroy his own race, too, probably causing a regeneration in the process. Looking back, it's hard to not see the Doctor as a warrior. He fights for good, even when "good" may be subjective.
And he has no problem just emasculating that guy with the beret.
Which is ballsy...him having the gun & all.
The second half of Series 6 is a bit of a roller coaster. It starts off strong with the fabulously named episode "Let's Kill Hitler," but that's a bit of a misnomer, and leads to some of the more confusing storylines of the series. Though, when it comes to the Doctor & River Song's story, you couldn't get more confusing.
Thank you internet for gold like this.
"The Girl Who Waited" gives us a look at an older Amy, and the realizations that she has about the Doctor. While this Amy is badass & just kind of awesome, you know what is going to happen by episode's end, further cementing the Eleventh as not only a liar, but just kind of a bastard. Yes, he has his reasons, and his intentions are good, but once more, his actions don't scream "hero" so much as "manipulative bastard."
To quote another Scot: "There can be only one!"
This incident, along with the Eleventh's revelation that he will die, causes him to rethink what he's been doing, and sends the Williams Family packing, though he does hook them up with a new house & a sweet car (but when did he get the chance to do that? And where did he get the guap for it?). Umm, let's see...Craig shows up again. That kind of ruined the flow a bit, as I've found one thing: Craig episodes equal laughs, not so much necessary story arc movement. I don't hate you Craig, I just hate the episodes you're in. And finally, we get to the finale, "The Wedding of River Song." We are thrust into a world that is quite different.
Including Ian McNeice returning as Churchill, whom I met.
The fact of the matter is that all of time & space is happening at once, and while events transpire, and not in some kind of time loop that keeps replaying, time itself is standing still. The moment? Right before the Doctor dies.
Ka-Blam!
But, come on. We know that's not the end. Why? Because he's the Doctor. The master manipulator. The man (Time Lord) with the best poker face in the whole of the known history. Well, that, and a) the show had already been renewed for another season & 2) Matt Smith is contracted for at least another season. Plus, if the Doctor was going out for good, it would have to be on a much grander scale. Episode-wise, it was pretty good, though more than a bit confusing. There was the aforementioned world of everything ever happening at once. Familiar faces didn't have familiar backstories. Everybody wore these Borg-like futuristic eye patches that you knew were just going to come back and bite them in the ass.
And the Eleventh looked haggard.
Not that anybody reads this, but I have a strong feeling that those who do (which, as a sentence, makes zero sense), are familiar with DC Comic's Flashpoint mini-series that lead to the reboot of the entire continuity from over the summer. While watching this episode, while everything was going wibbly-wobbly (and yes, sure, timey-whimey, too), I just couldn't not think of Flashpoint. All of these characters I knew and loved (or just kind of liked as friends) were there, but they were all quite different. Which was probably my favorite part of the episode. I mean, who doesn't love alternate timelines/dimensions/etc?
Commies. The answer is always Commies.
And while, yes, I did feel slighted by the cop-out near the end of the episode, I was also left wanting more, just like any good Whovian. Maybe the Dark Doctor that has been unfolding before us will change back to the fun-loving space hobo of yesteryear. Or maybe, just maybe, he'll go darker than we have seen him go.
WARNING: This may sound insensitive & probably douche-y, but I don't care. I do my best not to bow down before the puritanical gods of Political Correctness. I find that we Whovians have been like "battered woman." Wait, before you send the hate messages (which won't happen because nobody reads this), hear me out. And this doesn't happen to just the Whovians. It happens to every die hard fan. You fall in love with a product. You get emotionally invested in said product. It's great. It's like the honeymoon stage all day, every day. But then it hits. You realize "Hey, this wasn't so good." But you're invested. So you give it another chance. And again, it disappoints. But you keep going back. And it keeps slapping you down, yet it gives back just enough love that you think it'll change. That it'll go back to the way it used to be. So you go back again. And endless cycle, and I hope that it's not the case with Doctor Who. Sure, there were episodes that left me with a bad taste in my mouth, but there were also some great episodes & moments throughout Series 6. I'm truly hoping that Steven Moffat knows what he's doing, and is just kind of pissing the fans off to make his next move just that much more spectacular. I just hope he doesn't go the route of George Lucas & takes something great and just really screws it up. Just ruins it to the point that I never want to see it again, because all the wonderment and fun that was there has been utterly savaged and destroyed.
You'll burn for what you did.
But, for my many complaints, Series 6 and the continuously darker Doctor aren't all bad. There were numerous elements that I liked this season. I shan't go over all of them, as it would really lessen the hellfire rant that has comprised most of this blog entry, so I'll just do my top three.
The first would easily be the inclusion of Lily Cole as the mermaid/scary-ass alien doctor in "The Curse of the Black Spot." While I wasn't a big fan of this episode, I am a big fan of Miss Cole. And why wouldn't I be?
I do have a pulse, after all. Lechery.
My second favorite part of the season was the (fabulous) Neil Gaiman-penned episode "The Doctor's Wife." Judging solely on the title of the episode, and with the knowledge we already have about future events in the story, it'd be easy to think that this tale is about River Song. But you'd be so very wrong. In a wonderful turn of events, in a way that really only Gaiman can do, he turns the Doctor's first (and only) true love into flesh. Yup, the TARDIS becomes human. Ish. Humanish. And by the closing moments, you find that you're so emotionally invested that it is truly heart-wrenching. Much of the Doctor/TARDIS relationship is restated in this episode, including why it is often so finicky & lands in the wrong place/time (it isn't about where he wants to be, but where he needs to be), as well as how fate had nothing to do with his picking that particular TARDIS when he made his escape from Gallifrey. And just like bow ties, fezzes, & Stetsons, that is cool.
Gaiman, you magnificent bastard.
And finally my third favorite part of Series 6 was, unsurprisingly, Karen Gillen as Amy Pond.
I love you.
With all my gripes about Series 6 & all my fears of the possibility of a Dark Doctor, I still can't wait for the new Series to air (which feels like it won't be until forever). Why? Because I'm a Whovian. I get excited over every new episode, every special, every Children In Need skit. And that won't change, because in my heart, "intellect and romance" will always, always, always triumph "over brute force and cynicism."
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