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prixmiumcontent · 7 years ago

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Doctor Who - “The Unquiet Dead” - S01E03

A Meta Post/Review

Revised 01 December 2019.

Summary

In Cardiff, an undertaker and his servant deal with the fact that their deceased clients keep coming back to life and even kill the living. The Doctor tries to show Rose the TARDIS’s backwards-in-time feature by taking her somewhere more tourist-friendly, but the TARDIS knows best and brings them into the center of the drama. The Doctor, Rose, and reluctant ally Charles Dickens try to help Gwyneth, the undertaker’s servant, make sense of the “sight” which she has possessed all her life and what it might have to do with the ghostly, gaseous creatures who have haunted the funeral parlor and the surrounding areas.

Content Below

Analysis

Arbitrary Ratings

Content Warnings for Parents and Kids (Depending on Your Age)

Analysis

The Thesis Statement

Having shown Rose (and the audience) aliens and monsters and the possible future, the third episode of Doctor Who takes Rose to the past. The first three episodes of New Who are very clearly formulaic to a point that they might be viewed as something of a three-part pilot for a new audience. It is very clearly outlined in order to show the audience something of the breadth that the show can and will offer. There are aspects of the first two episodes that I personally find just a little bit difficult to watch now. They have obvious budget constraints, strange costume and effect choices at times, and several early installment hiccups that would be ironed out even by the end of Series 1.

If and when I am introducing New Who to a friend/new viewer, I always ask them to be ready to bear with me through Episode 5 and discount how silly and terrible aspects of Episodes 4 and 5′s villains are, too. However, I think that this episode is really one of the first that has aged pretty well in spite of any of its early installment difficulties. Now on to the episode itself.

Christmas in Cardiff

The cold open of this episode is more charming to me now than it was when I first watched it. Perhaps it is simply having more context for what a difficult place the United Kingdom was during the 19th Century. It is a place that seems riddled with ghost stories and scary tales in great part because of how difficult living was in the region when the Industrial Revolution had utterly changed the world, entrenching its own ills and advancements without any hope of going back.

One of my favorite things to do when I don’t feel like looking at a screen is to listen to podcasts, and I often favor true crime and mythology. I can’t tell you how often the two intersect in Victorian Britain, so I feel that this setting is a really good choice for Doctor Who to establish its time traveling element backward in time.

The opening scene with Mr. Sneed, a funeral parlor owner, comforting one of his clients upon the death of his grandmother is also something that is uniquely personal to me. Before becoming a teacher, I worked at a cemetery for a while. Anyway, one of the things that stands out to me as possibly unique is how obvious they make it that the reanimated Mrs. Redpath snapped her grandson’s neck. For some reason, this seems much more realistically deadly than some of the deaths that have followed in the show even though the series has a consistently high body count.

While I tend to balk at the idea that Doctor Who in its current incarnation has ever been a children’s program primarily, I appreciate the fact that upon Gwyneth’s introduction the different social norms - the class difference between her and her employer and the way in which he patronizes her in a sexist way in particular - are made clear in a way that seems like it would be easily accessible to younger audience members without a sophisticated understanding of the history of any of those things. It is unsettling without being cartoonish and absurd beyond what it should be.

The special effects in this episode with the Gelth and reanimated corpses themselves may not in any way compare to what Doctor Who has been able to accomplish and expect since, but I think what those visuals lack the set and set pieces and audio make up for. I find the old woman’s scream layered in with the childish cry of the Gelth voice inside her absolutely unnerving.

Again I would muse that Doctor Who isn’t something that I really expect many small children to be interested in on their own except for moments at a time. However as a family program I think that it often has pretty sophisticated storytelling that holds up to deeper analysis. Later in the episode, a person who is viewing the story in a wholly moment-by-moment way may easily sympathize with the Gelth and wonder if the Doctor’s curious, guilt-ridden compassion for them is correct. However, if one simply pays attention to the opening scene before the Doctor and Rose ever arrive (with the TARDIS tugging them in the direction they should go, after all), one can see that there is nothing benevolent, lost, or curious about the entity reanimating Mrs. Redpath’s corpse.

While she goes through the motions that Mrs. Redpath had intended to take before her death - attending the Dickens performance - it would seem that this is either simply a faulty connection between the Gelth and its human vehicle or something of a test run with the Gelth interfacing with the human brain it now controls like a user interface. What is most haunting about this whole thing is that there isn’t any sense that this woman is getting to fulfill a wish in any meaningful way from beyond the grave. Rather, something has coopted her unfulfilled plans after having mercilessly murdered her grandson. There isn’t any symbiosis between anything that remains of Mrs. Redpath in her body after her soul has gone. This is something that a keen viewer (or simply one who has seen it far too many times like myself) might pick up on, but it shows that there are layers to the narrative that are accessible to any age or caliber of viewer with reason.

The Greater Good

As an aside, since I imagine if you’re reading this post you are familiar with or curious about the episode, I want to give a little layman’s refresher on what “bodysnatching” is, given that Mr. Sneed tells Gwyneth that his is what they are about to do. Stripped down, this episode is literally about the ethics and morality of bodysnatching in a modernized and scifi-ized context. I recently heard a refresher in a podcast (Lore if you’re wondering), so I’ll pass it on to you: Bodysnatching was a practice that took place during the early days of medical research and large-scale medical schools. The term “operating theater” is sometimes used into the present day, but if there is an observation room it tends to be sealed behind a window in order to keep the operating room sterile. However, in an age before sterilization was fully understood or practical to do, one way in which medical students would learn about surgery and, more often, the inner workings of the human body would be to watch a more experienced physician perform surgeries or dissections of corpses in a room that literally looked like an amphitheater with a small stage.

One has to remember that prior to imaging technology that we have today, the only way to understand what was going on inside the body was to literally see the inside of a body. Therefore, corpses were in high demand in the training of young medical students. However, laws concerning the remains of law-abiding, typically Christian citizens after death prevented teaching doctors from getting access to the number of corpses they needed. This is where bodysnatching came in.

Bodysnatchers were not necessarily conventional grave robbers. In fact, some would even return clothes and the material riches buried with the deceased to the coffin in order to avoid prosecution as best they could. Their profit was made primarily or entirely through the shady deals that hospitals and medical schools made with them out of desperation, as the only legally available bodies were those who were the unclaimed who had died in workhouses and the bodies of executed murderers. Eventually, some alterations to the law which allowed for the donation of bodies made the need for this practice disappear, but there was a time when medical doctors had to make the choice between what they viewed as the most productive and helpful of two evils.

I think that the clear connection between that and the plot of this episode is as plain as day upon informed viewing.

Except for you.

Before the Doctor and Rose become aware of what is happening outside the TARDIS, we witness a bonding moment between the two of them. Rose is still wearing the same clothes from when she ran away with the Doctor, and one gets the impression that they have been having some issues with the TARDIS since they got back inside after getting chips at the end of the last episode. They haven't gone anywhere else. The Doctor is trying to wrangle the TARDIS into cooperating with backwards time-travel, but for some reason, she is not cooperating as well as she did with going into the future. One might assume that perhaps it is because she knows where they need to go even if they don’t yet.

The Doctor intends to take Rose to Naples, Christmas Eve, 1860. At first, he believes that he has succeeded. The Doctor is clearly in impress-Rose-and-convince-her-to-stay mode, full tilt. She has forestalled any decision about going home, and so he is allowing himself to hope that she will stay.

We have not yet had any complex analysis of why he wants this, but we do know that Nine tried traveling on his own and came back for Rose in particular. While I am not an Old Who expert by any means, we all know that he has had a history of traveling with companions. Generally, the Doctor in New Who is reluctant to take on new companions, but he has a moment which proves him wrong about a particular person. In the case of Nine, though, we don't so much have a moment as a process with his wanting Rose to stay with him, longer and longer each time.

For her part, Rose shows that she has the time travel bug badly when she responds to the idea of visiting a Christmas that has passed long ago. She holds reverence for the fact that something comes and goes and is over forever for everyone except the Doctor. She wants to be a part of this life, no matter what it might cost her, in this moment. After this and her commentary about learning about the expansion of the sun on television in the previous episode, it is once again clear that for whatever she lacks in certification and credentials, Rose is a brilliant person with a thirst for knowledge. She wants to see living history. She wants to experience the world around her.

In Doctor Who Confidential, I recall RTD mentioning that the Doctor and Rose were written to be soulmates of a sort from the beginning, and I think that this more than anything is what he probably meant. It isn’t just about personality quirks, but it is about that itch that Rose has to run away from her ordinary, expected lifestyle to touch the pulse of history unfolding and mattering around her that makes her “like the Doctor” and a match for him in that regard.

Healthy Skepticism

When the Doctor and Rose go for a walk in Cardiff and hear the screams coming from Charles Dickens’s performance as the reanimated Mrs. Redpath makes herself known, the Doctor and Rose go about investigating the problem in distinct ways. The Doctor does have a concern for the safety of others, but he goes directly to the highest vantage point and tries to identify the source and to ask the person who appears to have the most authority. Meanwhile, Rose notices the old woman and the undertaker and his servant and goes after them. She is concerned about the welfare of someone she has picked out of the crowd as needing help. Both of these are important roles, but the fact that Rose does this when she is traveling with the Doctor points out again how he needs someone like her to live up to his calling and reputation.

I had never really considered how both of Rose’s first outings involve her getting trapped in a room in some way. I can’t decide if this is an homage to the old show, a cautionary tale, or simply meant to show that there is a learning curve for traveling with the Doctor. It seems a bit odd that it happens in two episodes in a row, but when Rose awakens in the funeral parlor with Mr. Redpath coming back to life as well, she goes back to her customary cautious skepticism. She tries to go for the most ordinary, rational conclusion first, but she much more quickly accepts that she is dealing with zombies than she did with the shop window dummies in the first episode.

I cannot attest to how well Charles Dickens is portrayed in this episode as I don’t know as much about him as some other historical events and figures. However, I must say that the depiction is sympathetic and interesting. I really enjoy his presence in the episode, and the Doctor’s fawning over him is a cute bit of characterization that shows the Doctor’s ability to compartmentalize even when he does care about the present danger.

It is also nice to have a historical figure so known for pointing out social ills and being a skeptic of spiritualist frauds in a story that points out something that seems like it points to something of that nature going on. I appreciate that the story acknowledges the more rational sides of what could be even when it is presenting something that is more fantastical.

The debates that take place in this episode between the Doctor and Dickens and the Doctor and Rose, on a meta-level, primarily have to do with establishing a balance between skepticism and belief and between standard morality and the willingness to push those boundaries. Each person in either argument can be seen to have a point, and one of the things I admire the most about Doctor Who is the way in which it allows people of all different backgrounds to carry some of their own presuppositions and worldviews with them while challenging others. While the series itself tends to err on the side of science and rationality and in not allowing faith or religious belief to be an “opiate” that allows people to ignore present dangers and concerns, it does not take on such a cynical point of view that the most cynical and skeptical person in the room is always right.

In this case, the Doctor seems very resistant to the idea of an afterlife as Gwyneth perceives it, even though he has no problem with the fact that the Gelth need corporeal bodies in spite of existing outside them. While he knows that there are multiple universes and dimensions, he is dismissive of the idea that Gwyneth’s parents sent these “angels” to look after her. And this gives way to the Doctor cynically using what he believes to be Gwyneth's (primitive?) beliefs to further an agena. While he can be a tolerant and open-minded person, in this case Nine isn't having any of that.

The Doctor uses Gwyneth’s beliefs to manipulate her. He conveniently ignores those aspects of the narrative she presents about the Gelth and her understanding of them that he knows are objectively false but which further his purpose of giving these “pitiable” creatures the opportunity to live.

To be fair, one of the reasons he is so insistent about doing this is because they inform the Doctor that they lost their corporeal forms during the Time War. He feels personally responsible for what they have lost. He sees a resource in the empty human bodies of the dead, and he comes to a compromise in his mind. He plans to allow them to go through with their plan of using the reanimated dead and then to take them to a place where such an advanced race might be able to build new and proper bodies for themselves. Therefore, he allows Gwyneth to believe that she is helping “angels” that her parents sent from the afterlife to comfort her.

The Gelth themselves also use emotional manipulation in order to convince the Doctor and Gwyneth that they are pitiable creatures. They utilize children’s voices and a visage that looks very much like the shape of a human child when they manifest into a gaseous form. This comes in spite of the fact that we have already seen that they will kill before they will verbally communicate with humans. They have ingratiated themselves with Gwyneth and have comforted her. They have learned about her life and needs because they need her in order to establish a physical link within the rift that has opened up between their part of the universe and Cardiff. In spite of the fact that longterm exposure to the spacetime rift has allowed Gwyneth to develop an apparently-supernatural insight into the minds of others around her, among other things, she has had no ability to discern the true, more violent intentions of the Gelth.

Rose takes a different angle, but she is equally as skeptical about Gwyneth’s qualifications to make her own decisions about this circumstance. Rather than allowing Gwyneth to “believe what she needs to” in order to get the job done, Rose wants to protect her from her naivete that is based on the cultural differences between a woman of Rose’s time and one of Gwyneth’s. While this point of view may be more immediately sympathetic to me, it is also making the point that not meeting a person where they are and acknowledging the insight they do have, in spite of any blindspots or ignorance, is also dangerous.

Last but not least, we have Dickens who is skeptical about the very existence of something other-worldly influencing the physical and real world he knows. This is in spite of a few references to the fact that he perhaps holds to some religious and/or metaphysical beliefs. He resists the rampant abuses of the spiritualism fad of the time while also allowing himself to be convinced through empirical evidence. Charles is the character in the story who gains the moth “faith” in something that he cannot understand or make sense of completely, and he comes out of it with a renewed sense of vigor in his person and life in spite of the fact that he is nearing its end.

Gaslighting (not really I'm just making a joke)

Now, back to the way the Doctor manipulated Gwyneth and its consequences. Because the Doctor missed every possible sign that the Gelth were up to no good in a much more deliberate, calculating way than the Nestene Consciousness was, the Gelth manage to begin pouring themselves through the portal Gwyneth has become for them. The Doctor and Rose have to lock themselves in a sort of cage? I don't know what that is for in a funeral parlor. Maybe it is a closet, but it has a weird, barred door. They are left alone, and if not for external help, the Doctor and Rose would have both been overtaken by the Gelth. Rose is again faced with the possibility of her imminent death, and again she says that she is glad she met the Doctor rather than allowing herself to dissolve into regret. She doesn't want to die, but she seems to be continually convincing herself that even dying like this is better than not having done it at all.

I lived and breathed Doctor/Rose from the first few weeks I was into Doctor Who. Ever since I felt like I had a footing in the canon, though, I have always found that fellow-shippers always seemed to view the Doctor and Rose's relationship through rose-colored glasses (pun intended or no). I think that one of the most interesting parts of it is how it experiences very heartfelt, sweet growth through frankly insane, impulsive actions. It isn't an especially normal love story by a long shot, and I don't really understand the compulsion to act like it is, but I digress.

Luckily, Dickens decides to come back after having run away in terror. He figures out that the creatures are made of gas and that they can essentially pull them out using the gas system in the funeral parlor. Planet, Doctor, and Rose saved again. Then, the Doctor is faced with figuring out how to clean up the mess he has made through listening to his survivor's guilt instead of common sense and assuming that he knew better about intergalactic politics than everyone else in the room - regardless of the context and stakes. He tries to insist that Gwyneth send the Gelth back, and when she does not immediately comply, he again calls upon her beliefs in a way that he clearly does not himself espouse. He tells her that if her parents could look down and see her that they would help her and want her to do it. He knows that she has realized that the Gelth have manipulated and lied to her, but he still goes about trying to manipulate her. Poor Gwyneth simply could not catch a break from anyone.

The Gelth pulled this trick on all of them when they simply remained silent to demands for promises of safety, to the Doctor’s plan for helping the “few” of them, and so on. This lack of good faith conversation is shown on “both sides” - when it is intended to shelter and protect someone and when it is deliberately malicious. In both cases, it still causes some harm.

When Dickens returns and the Doctor once again tries to manipulate Gwyneth in order to save her and to, by extension, save everyone, it is still clear that the Doctor isn’t the one who is in control. Rose tries to insist that she stay behind because she has come to care about Gwyneth, but the Doctor successfully pleads that both the humans go without him. He even uses the phrase “I won’t leave her while she’s still in danger,” which one might argue is yet another emotionally manipulative phrase, but I tend to think that it is a very raw, true statement about how the Doctor must view life and death in some of the circumstances he finds himself in.

More things in Heaven and Earth

The Doctor is shocked when he works out that Gwyneth has been physically dead the entire time she had been interfacing with the Gelth. They killed her, and yet she maintained control of her mind. While she was literally their bridge, she manages to hold them and push them out. I wonder how much of that ws intentional or a matter of narrative convenience. In any case, it shows that the Doctor is also wrong about the existence of a person’s intentionality and personhood “after death,” at least in this one particular case. When he rejoins Dickens and Rose outside and recounts this to them, Dickens is the one who reminds him to have an open mind even when the truth seems regressive or irrational, showing that he has learned his lesson. The Doctor needs to learn his own lessons too, sometimes.

While this isn’t a Christmas special as such, it also introduces the fact that there is a certain special, forgiving nature to the Christmas season even in this universe and regardless of why. I think that this episode is affirming regardless of where you fall on the spectrum of easy-faith or easy-skepticism. It shows that the best way to approach something is through honest searching. That is why Gwyneth is a tragic hero in this episode. No matter what anyone else around her was doing, she was approaching her attempts to understand from an authentic place. She listened without a lot of presuppositions, and that was her strength. In the end, it cost her her life but let her keep her soul.

Arbitrary Ratings

Story - ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Characterization - ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Aesthetic - ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Overall - ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Considerations for Watching with Parents or Kids (Depending on Your or Their Ages)

This episode is actually pretty family-friendly except that it includes a lot of death. Lots and lots of death and dealing with corpses. If you feel your parent or child can handle that, then you’re probably safe.

Support

If you enjoyed this post and are over 20 years of age, please consider donating to my ko-fi to help an under-employed teacher pay her bills and for small millennial pleasures like avocados. You can find a link above. Other ways to support and encourage my writing are to comment/reply/engage and to reblog!

#doctor who #doctor who meta #rose tyler #the doctor #ninth doctor #nine #gwyneth #mr. sneed #doctor who series 1 #prixmiumtext #prixmiumtextdw #review #long post

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prixmiumcontent · 7 years ago

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Thank you!

Thank you to my 22 followers in my first week! I’m really appreciative of the fact that you’re all here. Please remember that it is helpful if you reblog the text posts, too, if you like them so others will see them. Many thanks to those of you who have already done so. I really love interacting with people about things, too, so if you have commentary then please feel free to add on to a reblog, to reply to the post, to send me asks, to talk in your tags, or to do whatever it is you like to do with your tumblr commentary.

I’m about to do the next Doctor Who episode, I think. Just a reminder that this will not be a solely Doctor Who blog. I chose it for reasons already described, but please bear in mind that this will be a multifandom meta blog. Please let me know if there are questions you’d like answered or particular fandoms you’d like to see. I plan on writing what I know, but I’ll definitely take recommendations into consideration.

#housekeeping: administrative #follower count mention /

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prixmiumcontent · 7 years ago

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This gem of a conversation is presented as a companion piece to my review of “The End of the World.” I’m working my way (back) through Doctor Who an episode or two at a time. There are a couple of things going on in this conversation that I appreciate. The first is that Rose is expressing a sense of the sanctity of her own mind that would perhaps be foreign to an innately telepathic species. We know that the Time Lords can feel the others’ presence, and the Doctor is suddenly quite alone in the universe. The other thing that I love is how Rose points out the Doctor’s “cheap shots at the Deep South.” In my review, I talk about how Rose expresses a comfort with the working and common classes she comes across in her travels, and I think this shows a sensitivity and empathy from one demographic often characterized as “white trash” to another.

#dwedit #doctor who #ninth doctor #the doctor #rose tyler #doctor x rose #doctor who series 1 #prixmiumedit #doctor who meta

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prixmiumcontent · 7 years ago

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Doctor Who - “The End of the World” - S01E02

A Meta Post/Review

Revised: 01 December 2019.

Summary

Immediately after running away with the Doctor, Rose finds herself in over her head at the end of the Earth itself. Not only is there a lot of culture shock for a young woman to deal with, but there is also a plot to sabotage the observation deck for the big day when the sun expands.

Content Below:

Analysis

Arbitrary Ratings

Content Warnings for Parents and Kids (Depending On Your Age)

Analysis

I cannot guarantee that every ounce of my analysis will be 100% original. After all, our opinions often are the result of listening to people who, at the time, seemed smarter/older/wiser. Back in the LiveJournal era of Doctor Who fandom, I was on a couple of comms that gave me my first lessons in the good, bad, and ugly of fandom. Back then, I saw one of those observations that made an impression on me that has perhaps reverberated throughout my fannish life.

The End of the F---ing World?

The observation in question was that the Doctor - Nine - chose to take his first companion with him to see the “end of the world” - her world: Earth.

As mentioned in my previous review, it is obvious that Nine is meant to be still-reeling after finding that he has survived the Time War and regenerated against his own hopes. He has just lost his world and a big part of his soul with it as far as he is concerned. His initial resistance to taking Rose on as an ally, friend, companion has a lot to do with survivors’ guilt. He does not view himself as worthy to have someone to stave off his fundamental, existential, and now in some ways permanent loneliness. If he is to be the sole survivor, he deserves to do so alone. However, Rose showed him in the previous episode that perhaps this was not quite so intractable an idea as he thought.

He decided that he wanted her to come with him so much that he came back for her after several other adventures, navigating very accurately to come back to the same moment in time. (As we know, this is something that the Doctor can't often do.)

Then, once she is on board, he sets out to try and impress her. He gives her his rapt attention and, at the same time, tries to show that he is “impressive.” She initially asks to see 100 years into the future, but he tells her that seeing that might be a bit boring. Then he offers her the year 12,005 - “the New Roman Empire.” She calls his bluff and challenges him to try again. He takes her up on this and takes her to witness the end of her world.

At first, this all seems very playful, but one has to wonder whether that is something he intended all along or if it was something that occurred to him on the spur of the moment when she was challenging him. I would be inclined to think that the seed of such an inclination must havae been there if not the thought itself from the moment he gets her to come along. After all, he had been considering coming back to get her for some time. It seems like seconds for her, but in the meantime he has gone and created much of the record that Clive had in the pervious episode. At least, this seems to be the only way one could explain there being so much of it when, in Rose's apartment, he has never seen his ears before.

In deciding that he was going to try not taking her first no as final, he also must have decided that there was something about her that was the right fit.

In that case, at a glance it seems almost cruel to take her to witness the death of her world. But he had just witnessed his.

Whether it is a good impulse or a bad impulse, even cruel, the Doctor makes his first move in their relationship by trying to make her a little more like him.

On Rose's side of this interaction, I can’t help but notice what I pointed out in my last post about the way in which some of her early reactions seem quite callous and selfish. I’m honestly not sure if this is the result of a certain lack of concern about continuity or continuity of character; this is the first time-traveling episode of a revival of a children’s show about time travel. Of course the companion should be happy. Or is it a deliberate act of characterization?

If it is characterization, it points back to the fact that Rose is very young and impulsive and that she is, ultimately, so hungry for something else to happen in her life that she is willing to ditch Mickey in an instant, given a second chance, combating what seem to be her higher principles for this chance the Doctor is giving her. Once her hesitance is gone, it is out the window for good as far as she seems concerned.

Burning Bright

Once aboard the Satellite, Rose begins to show one of my favorite character traits she has. She dropped out of school before completing her A-Levels, and yet she shows some knowledge of the facts that the sun is to one day expand and engulf the Earth and that continents shift over time. By training, I’m a teacher, and let me tell you that there are plenty of people in the world who don’t know those things, not because they can’t know them but because they don’t care.

Rose has a vibrant, hungry mind and she learns things the way many of us do: through television, documentaries, and the internet. She did not complete her formal education, and yet she is a very smart person. I cannot express quite how much I love that the first New Who companion is a person like this, because it really shows that anyone and everyone can be a part of this even if they do not have the formal certificates and seals of approval that even most of us have by the time we reach adulthood. Learning a smattering of things through educational sources that are made for but not necessarily used by the common person is actually pretty inspiring, and I love that about Rose from the moment we meet her.

I knew I loved you before I met you.

Another thing that requires knowledge of future episodes that I love is the fact that if Jack Harkness did indeed somehow become the Face of Boe, he facilitated this first meeting between the Doctor and Rose. It is a loop of him looking after young Rose before her life with the Doctor and a testament to his love for both of them. If you listen carefully to the Steward, you hear him say that the Face of Boe is the sponsor of the main event, meaning that Jack ultimately brought them together for this event that has so much of an impact on what they will become together and to each other.

Yikes. (Transphobia.)

Now for a bit of criticism and an explanation of my personal viewpoint on certain fandom discussions/arguments/dividing lines: I have been in the Doctor Who fandom since before RTD handed the reins over to Moffat. I am a chronic hater-of-change, too. However, I refuse to choose a side between the two. There are certain elements of the show under both showrunners that are problematic. This tends to get ignored by hardline RTD supporters because some of Moffat’s most egregious errors early in his tenure were quite blatantly sexist in a way that RTD’s work didn’t tend to be. That was definitely a let-down, and I’m not going to deny that. However, I would ask you to look no further than Cassandra in “The End of the World” to see an example of RTD presenting deeply flawed, transmisogynistic material.

I am not here to pass judgement on elective plastic surgery. I am a cis woman with my own specific personal and economic background. I haven’t walked in anyone else’s shoes. However, the character of Cassandra uses a lot of terrible shorthand in order to create an antagonist who is initially totally unsympathetic.

Of course I hate practices that perpetuate and enforce unhealthy, unrealistic beauty standards. One might argue that a pursuit of personal perfection through the means of plastic surgery is either being complicit in that or giving in to the pressure. However, a one-size-fits-all stance holding that fails to take into consideration that each person is different and has a different journey to take.

Cassandra’s introduction is one of the sharpest critiques of aesthetic change through the means of plastic surgery that one could concoct. I remember thinking it was sort of clever when I was younger. Initially, all I saw as an indictment of the kind of person who tries to make others conform to his or her narrow. nearly impossible beauty standards. However, this episode really cannot be let off that easily.

The simplest breakdown I can give is this. Cassandra is presented as someone who considers herself “the Last Human,” because she is the last living human to have a bloodline unadulterated by compatible alien species at any point in its history. This is, of course, racist by any stretch of the imagination. However, this particular hypocrisy is meant to be underscored by Cassandra’s pursuit of plastic surgery and an unrealistic, deformative beauty standard. The fact that there is something deeply wrong with this particular line of thinking can be heard almost immediately, though. One of her first lines includes the phrase “... when I was a little boy...”

This is played for a laugh. It is weird to think how much time and social awareness (in fandom circles which tend to lean left) have changed since when this was new. It is supposed to be funny not because the notion of alternative gender norms is itself funny, I think. Charitably, it is supposed to show how far Cassandra has come from where she started in every conceivable way. It is "funny" because it is surprising. But it clearly presents the idea that Cassandra is a transwoman for the sake of humor. Furthermore, it is absolutely conflating the idea that her having gender affirmation surgeries was the beginning of a slippery slope down to the path to this strawwoman argument she has become - a slab of flesh with a brain in a tank under the pursuit of physical beauty and thinness. It is really not a good look for one of the first episodes of this show. I still enjoy a lot of RTD’s work, and you can see my first post to see how I feel about certain aspects of fandom discourse. I am not against either era of Doctor Who. I also don’t feel like I am under the moral obligation to bring up how terrible in concept Cassandra is every single time I have something good or bad to say about this series. It isn’t a points system, and I’m not Cinema Sins. Nevertheless, I feel that this bears pointing out, so I have.

In spite of this deep flaw in writing Cassandra as this type of antagonist - a queer-coded villain if every there was one, written by a gay man no less - one can at least see the fact that her purpose as an antagonist is to be exclusionary and racist. We just kind of have to keep moving along to talk about this story.

The Great and the Good.

As Rose becomes overwhelmed by the culture shock of everything she is experiencing and runs off to be alone, she meets the plumber Raffalo and gives her permission to speak. The Doctor had previously pointed out that the Satellite is less a spaceship and more like an observation deck for the very rich to enjoy a cultural event such as the end of the Earth. Rose comes from a working class background, and I think that this is intended to be yet another part of her culture shock. She wears slouchy, comfortable clothes (which I can’t believe look dated now) and does not know how to handle the formalities of whatever strange cultural ritual is going on from more than one angle. Then it is pointed out how service workers even in the diverse, alien future are treated differently and poorly. Rose is more comfortable with those people, and you can read into that what you like. The positive characterization here, though, definitely is that Rose is compassionate, particularly toward those who seem to be forgotten or pushed aside. Once again, we learn the name of a character who will only be alive for mere moments longer and that gives her some kind of dignity it would seem even if she never comes up again.

One thing I do like about the use of the little electric spiders that Cassandra uses as her accomplices is that they are allowed anywhere and everywhere on the ship as a gift. That just seems like a commentary on trust and discernment, but it gets played with a bit in the narrative.

Don't argue with the designated driver.

When the Doctor at last catches up with Rose to check on her, back where they started, we have their first major argument with Rose being well out of her comfort zone. It is not as if they have not had words before and recovered from them, but it stands out that there is a definite power differential here. While I think that some relationships experience their greatest growth when they survive arguments, Rose is at a clear disadvantage here. She has only just started to consider that she ran away with a complete stranger who also happens to be an alien who has taken her billions of years out of her home era. We have to recognize that Rose is in over her head, and the Doctor is not prepared to be completely forthcoming with her.

It is very cute, but when Rose approaches the Doctor with her line: “Like my mate Shareen says: don’t argue with the designated driver...” she is pointing out a scary truth. She has put herself in a place of extreme vulnerability to the Doctor’s moods and whims. He plays ball and tries to reassure her and to give her at least some connection to her own world - something familiar: her phone. (Look at that cute little pink-tartan brick phone! I wonder if it has the worm game.)

In spite of the fact that it turned out to be a bonding moment, imagine what the connotation might have been had that conversation gone differently. This is not to suggest that there is something more sinister to the subtext than there is but simply that the subtext is there. The Doctor is not in a good place; he himself is not an ideal companion right now. Rose is not prepared to deal with this level of change so abruptly and now she is powerless to stop whatever happens next except the power the Doctor grants her. Beyond being a strange man, he is a being who simply is more powerful than she is.

Trees, Monks, and Little Blue Men - Oh My!

In spite of my criticisms for Cassandra as a concept (I like her second appearance slightly better, but the problems remain), there are some other bits of good characterization and worldbuilding in this episode. I particularly like the race of sentient Trees, and I am sort of sad that we have never revisited them. The production values of Doctor Who have certainly gone up over the years since 2005 as it established itself as a success. In particular, I think Moffat really pushed for a higher effects budget with the switch over to HD in S5, but I am not completely sure about the details. I just remember that as the point at which Doctor Who became so mainstream there was merch in Hot Topic rather than it being this thing that I had to go trowling for that no one had ever heard of.

The risk I took was calculated, but boy, am I bad at math.

In this episode, Rose is rendered sort of a distressed and trapped damsel while Jabe takes the place of the Doctor’s companion and helper. This allows her to provide some exposition about the Doctor’s being the sole survivor of his race. It also allows the narrative to demonstrate that the stakes for a companion are life and death without immediately killing Rose. She spends most of the episode trapped in a room where the expansion of the sun happening in fast-motion is about to kill her. It sort of imparts this sense that the very spirit that makes her smart enough for the Doctor to keep around is also what might get her killed. Curisoity killed the cat, as it were.

One of the themes that has become more and more pronounced over the years with Doctor Who is how being a companion is such a dark, foreboding proposition at times. It is not all adventure, and it isn’t all about being good, either.

When Rose is at last free, and the Satellite is apparently saved, The Doctor shows another example of his being raw and perhaps a bit unhinged following the Time War. He pulls Cassandra back from her escape via teleporation, hellbent on vengeance. He watches her dry out and die. In the midst of it, Rose asks him to help, but he says: “Everything has its time and everything dies.”

Those words are a pervasive theme of the series as well. It helps to balance the freedom that time travel gives it. With time travel, a person can bounce back and forth, see the living, the dead, and the not-yet born, and yet everything has an expiration date. However, I don’t think it is a stretch to say that what the Doctor did with Cassandra is framed as alarming and unjust. Yet, Rose watches and learns after her objection. In this case, Rose doesn't try to stop him. While this develops as a theme from Donna onward, I wonder if it might be interesting to track whether or not Rose actually does a lot of stopping-the-Doctor in terms of deliberate action. Perhaps she doesn't as much as the rest do?

You can fix him.

For the remainder of the episode, we see her processing this and all that has happened including the fact that “we were too busy saving ourselves - no one saw it go,” about the Earth. She is learning the particular abiding sense of loss that will follow her and the rest of the companions around. There is something dark in the center of the particular breed of hero that this universe and the Doctor himself produces.

I’m not suggesting that the Doctor coerces Rose to stay with him. However, there does seem to be a desperate note in what he is doing at the end. He finally decides to be honest with her when she sets foot back on Earth, sometime during her home era. He explains his loss and loneliness. There is something of a kind of brooding manipulation at play here, even if it is unintentional on the Doctor's part. He has gotten her adrenaline riled up. He has saved her life, even though he is a major reason it was in danger in the first place. And Rose starts eating it up. She suggests that she could be a part of the solution for his loneliness. She isn’t sure she will stick with it without reservation yet, but she postpones her decision and already shows a great deal of affection for the Doctor.

While the Doctor and his companions are almost always the “good guys” in this narrative, I think that it is impor1tant to note that the darkness that sometimes lurks in these relationships between the Doctor and the humans he loves is not something unique to Moffat. Rather, it is something that seems inherent to the show that New Who as a whole seems to have made a point to acknowledge; traveling with the Doctor is a wonderful adventure but one which has a price.

Arbitrary Ratings

Story - ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Characterization - ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ (A point off for Cassandra.)

Aesthetic - ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Overall - ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Considerations for Watching with Parents or Kids (Depending on Your or Their Ages)

List of potentially sensitive topics/moments:

The above-described transphobia that is inherent to Cassandra’s character.

Some mild sexually charged banter between the Doctor and Jabe including Jabe’s trying to discern if the Doctor and Rose are sexually involved rather insensitively.

Cassandra’s death is kind of gross.

Support

These posts take quite a long time to write. I am an English teacher who didn’t manage to land a full-time contract this year, so if you enjoyed this post and are over 20 years old, please consider buying me a coffee. It will really help me not be left with absolutely nothing after paying my bills. However, I fully welcome other kinds of support as well. This is first and foremost for fun. Please comment, like, and reblog. Reblogging helps others see it, even if you don’t have anything to add. Thank you so much to those who followed since the last post - 11 at my last count!

#doctor who #doctor who meta #rose tyler #ninth doctor #the doctor #cassandra #jabe #doctor who series 1 #prixmiumtext #prixmiumtextdw #long post #review

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prixmiumcontent · 7 years ago

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The moment when the Doctor reached out and made a telepathic connection with Rose and the TARDIS in order to allow her to understand what was happening around her after all her questions. The moment when he finally accepted and pleaded for her help.

#dwedit #doctor who #rose tyler #ninth doctor #doctor x rose #the doctor #prixmiumedit #Doctor Who S01E01 #doctor who series 1

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prixmiumcontent · 7 years ago

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Doctor Who - “Rose” - S01E01

A Meta Post/Review

Revised: 01 December 2019.

Summary

Rose Tyler, an ordinary working class shop-girl from London, finds her life forever changed when she runs into living shop-window dummies and a mysterious stranger in her workplace basement. Over the course of a couple of days, Rose’s life with her mother and boyfriend is turned upside down as the Doctor becomes a part of her life that neither of them seem to be able to extract. Rose becomes curious and insists that the Doctor give her answers in spite of the fact that getting close to the Doctor poses a danger to her own life and her loved ones’ lives. The Doctor is alone after a great catastrophe which he did not expect to survive known as the Time War. At first, he wants to travel and work on his own, but Rose eventually wears him down and shows him that he needs her help to defeat a creature of living plastic who threatens all life on Earth.

Content Below:

Analysis

Arbitrary Ratings

Content Warnings for Parents and Kids (Depending On Your Age)

Analysis

Window-Dressing

During the first montage of Rose’s everyday life before she meets the Doctor, there are several striking details in the span of about two minutes. Of course, the purpose of this scene is to establish that she is a “normal” person - not only normal but working class, fairly poor, but surviving comfortably. However, I think there are numerous details that one can point to that show more detailed characterization for Rose. While we do have several easy, trope-laden shortcuts - soap opera and horror elements - there are specifics, too.

One of the first things I notice is Rose’s bedroom. It is a garish mix of pinks and purples that seems like it would be appealing more to a little girl than to a young woman.

According to certain outside-canon sources, Russel T. Davies elaborated on Rose’s background by saying that Rose left school at the age of sixteen before completing her A-Levels in order to pursue a relationship with a twenty-year-old musician named Jimmy Stone. This relationship ended badly and left Rose £800 in debt. Some of this information might be a bit dubiously and inconsistently delivered even in the supplementary material it came from, but I think the idea that this is a part of Rose’s backstory holds up.

It helps to contextualize why Rose’s room is perhaps itself a little bit trapped in a time before her present. While it certainly isn’t a long-shot to suggest that Rose likes the color pink, along with other bright colors, it seems easy to see that not only has Rose felt trapped in her lot in life due to factors like economic status and lack of opportunity but that she has also created a gap for herself. It almost seems as if Jackie left Rose’s room as it was when her daughter left to pursue an unwise romantic relationship and that Rose’s room was just the same when she returned.

This might even serve as a kind of foreshadowing for the kind of person Rose has been so far and how it will influence her interactions with the Doctor. Leaving with the Doctor would not be the first time Rose has left her mother, Mickey, and everything about her life behind to pursue something she wanted, no matter the cost. We also have the suggestion that the same life she has abandoned before is willing to take her back in. She kisses Jackie goodbye, and later, on her lunch break, she is seen laughing, eating, and playing with Mickey by a fountain. She kisses him goodbye, suggesting that their romantic relationship either began or resumed after she returned from her failed relationship with Jimmy.

Now, I love Rose very much - so please see my criticism through that lens - but I think this shows us almost immediately one of Rose’s character flaws that we might track throughout her journey as a companion. She takes the backdrop of her life for granted. Despite whatever challenges she may face, she is confident that those things she has always been able to rely on will be there for her in the end. I will be interested to see in my rewatch (after quite a long time) how this theme holds up, changes, or grows throughout Rose’s characterization.

Random Chance vs. Fate

Rose’s life changes because of a happenstance. Among all the other shopgirls heading home from work, she is the one who happens to be sent down into the basement to provide poor, unfortunate Wilson with the lottery money. I’m not British, so I don’t fully understand this specific framing, but it is pretty clear how this whole thing has a sense of chance in it. While it might later feel easy to assume that Rose was always meant to be a part of something much larger than herself, this circumstance makes it look like Rose’s life with the Doctor is almost itself as random-chance as winning the lottery.

Going from the soap opera character-framing and straight into horror territory, it seems no accident that Rose is a blonde girl being instructed to wander somewhere dark and dangerous alone. However, in spite of this familiar image, it is apparent that Rose isn’t one to panic quickly and that she is quite intelligent. One thing I notice about her when the Autons begin to approach her is that her eyes never stop moving. She is thinking, observing. Nevertheless, she is backed into a corner by something extraordinary and probably dangerous. She is outnumbered by rubberized men. There are a lot of things one could read into that image, but I can’t blame Rose for not knowing where to start.

The Doctor takes Rose’s hand and leads her out of harm’s way, but when they are alone in the elevator, he does not seem particularly interested in the idea of having help. He has a plan, and he does not want anyone to interrupt. However, he is interested in her questions.

From a much more experienced-Who viewer’s standpoint, it is interesting to listen to the way Nine questions Rose. He is interested in hearing her thought process about why she believes that the Autons might be students in some sort of creepy flash-mob in spite of knowing that she is wrong. He is interested in the fact that she is thinking under pressure - not panicking the way some people might.

Rose, on the other hand, is faced with the fact that someone she knows and has worked with is dead as a result of incomprehensible events. Not only that, but it confirms that her obvious fear moments before was justified. She was in mortal danger, even if she was unsure of that fact until the Doctor confirmed it. She tries to deny it, but the Doctor doesn’t give her time to argue. He ignores her questions for a while, but eventually he explains the reality of the situation - living plastic creatures, a relay device on the roof, and a bomb that he intends to set off.

A Death Wish

One of the most striking lines from the Doctor in this episode perhaps is that he clearly announces: “... I might well die in the process.”

We learn a bit later that the Doctor has not slowed down at all since his last regeneration. He has not even seen his own reflection. This would seem to indicate that, in spite of his regeneration being quite new, a Doctor reeling from having survived the Time War when he did not expect to is a Doctor with a death wish. At the very least, he does not care if he lives or dies.

He leaves Rose to fend for herself, running off to place himself in mortal danger to stop a localized threat of living shop-window dummies. However, before he leaves her entirely, he pops his head back out and asks for her name. Later on in Series 1 and throughout the rest of the series as a whole, it has become a running theme that it is a valuable thing to learn someone’s name and to remember it, whether they live or die. Someone dying nameless is treated as a particular tragedy in this narrative, so it is interesting that the Doctor both gives Rose his name (or title as it happens) and learns hers even when he is not sure whether or not he will live by his own accounting.

Alienation

When Rose returns to her own home, life, and family, there is already a sense of alienation. Rose is distracted and disinterested in the everyday. There is news coverage of the explosion at Henrik’s, and Jackie is on the phone, discussing the drama with her friends on a landline. (A landline! It’s amazing what a different world even 2005 was to now. I can’t believe that this has become a period piece since I started watching this show.)

Rose is sitting there in a slumped position, looking visibly worn out to her mother. She is not being forthcoming about her near-brush with death and the minor trauma she has just experienced. Not only that, but I just noticed for the very first time on this watch-through that the news coverage plainly says that there were “No Fatalities” - alas, poor Wilson, forgotten already.

When Mickey arrives to check on Rose’s welfare, it is obvious that he is genuinely concerned about her. He is clingy for a moment, fussing and worrying in spite of the fact that Rose doesn’t really want him to. However, as soon as he is assured that she is alright, he wants to go back to something that I assume is an everyday, normal sort of activity for them - visiting the pub so he can watch sports on TV while spending time with her. Rose declines his offer to go, and when they part ways, Rose playfully tries to trip Mickey. We saw this kind of playful pushing and shoving affection between them earlier in the episode, too, and it stands out to me that they have an affection for each other that is deep and abiding but not inherently romantic.

I always appreciated Rose and Mickey’s relationship, even before I came to terms with my multi- and poly-shipping ways, and I realize that this is because I never got the impression that one was particularly meant to take their romantic connection seriously. Their romantic connection is one of convenience and familiarity, and even when Mickey grieves over the loss of it, it is a lack of familiarity and comfort that he seems to grieve most of all.

By the next morning, Rose seems almost ready to settle back into her old, ordinary life when the Doctor comes back in to shatter any chance of that.

In researching to write this, I learned that the minor controversy she has with Jackie over the cat-flap at their apartment is actually addressed in one of the quasi-canon novels that were released. Apparently the cat they formerly had was the first cat in hyperspace, if you’re interested.

What stands out to me about the Doctor and Rose’s walk-and-talk that ensues when Rose insists that the Doctor not leave her behind without answering her questions is the way the Doctor still seems so resistant to her presence and help. He keeps getting drawn into conversations with her and to answering her questions, anyway, but it is with a lot of deflection on his part. One could argue that this is just window-dressing for his new, outwardly-prickly regeneration. However, I point back to the fact that this is the Doctor still running from the fact that he regenerated rather than dying with his people. He is fully convinced that he caused the death of all of them.

He believes that he committed a genocide against his own race that he fully intended to be a victim of as well. He has survivor’s guilt, and no matter what happens in further installments of the series, the integrity of this has been maintained. The Doctor, at this point, believes, more than he ever has had cause to before, that he is a murderer, a war criminal, and even a monster.

He doesn’t want company, and yet Rose will not leave him alone.

He needs someone with him. He needs someone, as Donna will later say, to stop him. He needs someone to remind him who he needs to be, and someone to help him. And yet, at this early stage, he does not want that no matter how alluring it might be. He does not want to enjoy his travels or his efforts to fix and save things. He is doing these things as penance and to avoid slowing down to look in the mirror too often.

Score Points

Another thing I really love to notice and consider in the things I watch is the musical score. If one looks at the track listing for the first album of Murray Gold’s Doctor Who music, one hears “The Doctor’s Theme” first when Rose chases after the sound of the TARDIS fading away for the first time. However, this piece of music ultimately wasn’t ever really used as the Doctor’s theme at all. Even when Rose runs into the TARDIS, one can see the way it latched onto her in the process of editing this story and wouldn’t let go. The only time it ever really seems to be used as a "Doctor's theme" is in the next episode, “The End of the World,” when the Doctor is concentrating in order to avoid the blades of the air conditioning system aboard the ship. Instead, this particular piece of music tends to be used specifically in connection with the concept of the Bad Wolf and with Rose. What was intended to be an ethereal theme for the Doctor himself, vocalized by a woman, instead becomes emblematic of this ordinary woman who becomes, for a moment, something godlike who was never meant to wield such power, accomplishing salvation and terrible things through her association with the Doctor. Personally, I think that transformation is so interesting. The Bad Wolf is such and underutilized concept, and it is definitely a part of Rose that sort of transcends her personal timeline. I love that, and that’s one reason it did not bother me at all that Billie Piper returned to the 50th Anniversary Special as the Bad Wolf incarnate rather than as a fully-fledged return of Rose Tyler as we knew her. I’m sure I’ll talk more about the Bad Wolf and this aspect of Rose in the future.

A Doomed Prophet

When Rose goes to see Clive, the Ninth Doctor-only conspiracy theorist, this poor man has one apt observation that also underscores and contrasts with the idea of what Rose is and will become in the Doctor’s life. He has somehow intuited that the Doctor is, in fact, “the Oncoming Storm”: “The Doctor is a legend woven throughout history. When disaster comes, he’s there. He brings a storm in his wake, and he has one constant companion: Death.” Of course, there is the simple constraint that Nine is the Doctor’s first iteration in New Who. That means that it would have been quite difficult for them to include other visages of the Doctor that would have been equally recognizable, particularly to a new audience. However, the unintended narrative consequence of having Clive knowing quite a bit about the Doctor on his own, not recognizing Rose (or even Jack) as a part of his story or “lineage,” is the suggestion that the Doctor has truly, as I pointed out before, been running from himself and ever since his regeneration cycle. The only other time that Nine is apart from Rose for long enough to create this history is during the space of time after he leaves her at her first answer at the end of the episode; perhaps it’s a bit one one, a bit of the other.

Are you even paying attention?

After Rose leaves Clive's house, not particularly persuaded, we are once again faced with the fact that Rose is both accustomed to taking her life and loved ones for granted. They are so consistently there-for-her that she fails to recognize that Mickey has been replaced by an Auton duplicate. She is focused on the fact that she is shell-shocked from the past couple of days. We can cut her a little bit of slack under the circumstances, but it doesn't change that she doesn't notice that her boyfriend is a mannequin.

Instead, she accepts his support, and she talks at him about her concerns. She steers the conversation, letting Mickey fulfill his present station as a sounding board for her while trying to move back into something that feels normal and safe. All while not noticing how he looks just a little off, shiny and plastic, and isn't communicating in a way that sounds natural whatsoever. This is not to say that Rose does not care about Mickey or the people around her, only that her mind is completely elsewhere.

She does care about the well-being of others. When the Doctor arrives on the scene and reveals Auton!Mickey’s nature, Rose looks around and finds a way to deal with the civilian population by pushing the fire alarm. Then, she and the Doctor make their escape out the back and through the kitchen, trying to shoo them out of the way, too.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but because I never worked in food service, when I go into a restaurant that is very large at all, I tend to almost see the kitchen and the rest of the behind-the-scenes operations as a sort of black box that does not even occur to me as a Euclidean space. This is not to say that I do not consider the kitchen staff and their welfare; I care about service workers of all kinds. However, it feels like a carry-over from very early childhood instructions on my parents’ part not to wander off into employees-only places. Because I have never actively worked in a professional kitchen, it feels like an almost mystical domain which I should not be aware of in any intimate manner. What I’m saying is that while it might be reasonable to assume that Rose has perhaps worked in or around food service before, I just think that it shows a very wide-eyed, observant person to effectively clear out an entire restaurant so quickly. I’m not sure I wouldn’t dawdle a bit in the same situation or forget to consider the kitchen crew.

Powers of Observation

Rose’s first encounter with the TARDIS and the sequence that follows is one that has a lot of emotional whiplash, especially on repeat-viewing. First, we have Rose being very skeptical and - again - insistently observant about what her sense of sight is telling her. In spite of her desperation to retreat to safety, she backs out of the TARDIS the first time and checks its outer dimensions before running back in with nowhere else to go. She accepts the bigger-on-the-inside reality fairly quickly, but it is not without gathering her own evidence and making sure that her senses aren’t deceiving her. In spite of her taking her life structure and family somewhat for granted, it would seem that she does not take other situations or circumstances quite so without question. Perhaps one could say that this hyper-vigilance and the fact that she seems to take certain things for granted in places where she lets her guard down go hand-in-hand.

At once, Rose gathers information, satisfying eager curiosity, and repeatedly swoops back down to earth to grapple with the human element of the situation.She learns what the TARDIS is and only then does she begin to cry because she just witnessed a facsimile of her boyfriend be beheaded via headlock. She asks the Doctor whether or not the real Mickey is dead; she is concerned now with what she so blindly missed before. Then, when the Doctor abruptly moves the TARDIS in order to track the signal the plastic was evidently giving off, she becomes curious and collected again. She asks questions, then goes back to her more practical, domestic concerns about dealing with the fallout of Mickey’s death. Apart from the momentary burst of “culture shock” or grief, Rose does not allow herself to grieve or break down yet. She does get angry at the Doctor for failing to consider the human cost of what is happening, though.

When the Doctor explains that he forgets about Mickey because he is concerned with saving every other human’s life, Rose begins to try and defuse the tension a little. In fact, this scene is a lot more strange and uncomfortable for me than I remember it being a decade ago. It isn’t that the Doctor and Rose’s interaction when she begins to ask questions about the TARDIS’s disguise and what the Doctor needs to accomplish are out of place. In isolation, I love them to this day. However, my one critical word is that Rose seems to be put in a position of appeasing the Doctor while the narrative itself seems to push at the idea that Rose’s concern for the “human element,” compassion, and paying attention to the civilians is exactly what the Doctor lacks and needs when he is without a companion for too long. It’s a minor nitpick, but I suppose the most charitable read on it is that we are being shown the Doctor and Rose’s willing ability to compromise with one another and to overcome interpersonal conflict? I’m really glad that Mickey is increasingly humanized throughout Series 1 and 2. It’s just a little uncomfortable that Rose’s grief and concern for a loved one is brushed aside quite so easily as a plot device. It feels like there’s just one transitional element missing, though I couldn’t tell you how exactly to tweak it to perfect the scene.

What can be said about Rose’s more detached reaction is that this shows that she has it in her to deal with stressful situations while maintaining her composure. This is one of the qualities that all of the companions generally have or learn, and Rose has it in spades. She seems more at home dealing with the alien invasion than she did trudging through the boredom of her day-to-day retail life. In a way, isn’t this a power fantasy for every ordinary human viewer of the show? The notion that if only one had something more important and worthwhile to do that one’s depression and malaise would suddenly disappear. Rose is even smiling as they work to locate the Nestene Consciousness’s transmitter and hideout. Furthermore, we see that the Doctor needs a second set of eyes, particularly when he is so jaded himself. He completely overlooks the London Eye in spite of his own description while Rose immediately catches on because she is open-eyed and open-eared in response to finally having something to do with her powers of perception.

When they at last find the Nestene Consciousness, there is something of a reversal. Rose is immediately gung-ho about the idea of simply killing the creature and moving on. After all, to her it is simply an inhuman, alien monster who is living in some kind of smelly, red-glowing hell that poses a threat to people she loves and to people in general. She doesn’t hold compassion and mercy for this creature in spite of her concern about human civilians. She certainly does not view this monster as a person. However, the Doctor insists that while he has the “anti-plastic” as insurance; he is not there to kill it and must give it a chance. The Doctor wasn't going to give himself a chance earlier, but now he is operating on a bigger scale. It is hard to say if the Doctor has changed tact now that Rose is in the picture or not.

Rose finds Mickey and secures his safety, but then we can see that she is interested and engaged in what the Doctor is doing. She finds a place to keep Mickey sheltered higher up from the fray, but she watches the Doctor very closely.

The Doctor Loses

Personally, I find the Nestene Consciousness’s little story a bit underwhelming in the way it is executed and presented, but it is tragic if one simply listens to the dialogue. The Doctor loosely translates what it is saying by means of conversational tactic rather than the audience being able to understand what the Consciousness is saying at first - which I’ll come back to in a second. The Consciousness is referring to its Constitutional Rights apparently, and it is trying to justify itself to the Doctor after agreeing to hold an audience with him according to intergalactic principles and jurisdictional laws (apparently). The fact that it becomes suspicious, angry, afraid, and reactive and things spiral out of control is quietly tragic. I’m not saying that I personally would do much better at finding a peaceful solution with a big tub of seemingly molten plastic, but I think that it is easy to miss in this earliest episode that in spite of the fact that they stop the damage, the Doctor actually loses in this episode in great part because of the fact that he did not bring Rose into the fold earlier and utilize her to help in the first place. At least, that might be one takeaway from it. The Consciousness is killed, human lives are lost, and a great big mess is made that may have been avoided at the Doctor made different, less personally isolating choices.

The "Gift of the TARDIS"

And now I get to talk about one of the first things I ever wanted to write meta about; I have wanted to write about this particular thing for a decade. In the next episode, “The End of the World,” the Doctor explains that Rose understands alien languages because of the proximity of the TARDIS and its telepathic translation circuit. This means that the Doctor has a telepathic interaction with the TARDIS which we have confirmed multiple times and in various ways throughout the series. However, it would seem to be a further proof of the Doctor’s willful isolation that the TARDIS has closed herself off to interaction with others around him as well. In later episodes, it would seem that this translation circuit is generally a gift that the TARDIS bestows upon anyone and everyone near it. Of course, one can point to narrative convenience, but we have a very specific, deliberate use of the idea that the TARDIS’s translation services can be denied if the Doctor is not part of the loop. This comes up again later in The Christmas Invasion where the Doctor's coma-like state results in the TARDIS no longer translating for anyone around her. It would stand to reason, then, that the TARDIS has a relationship with the Doctor that dictates its general behaviors toward everyone else. If the Doctor is not okay, it/she is nto okay.

Even after the Doctor has accepted Rose’s convenient and imminent help to find the Nestene Consciousness, it would seem that he has still accepted this only as a temporary arrangement. He is still trying to hold out on his own, not to get too deeply involved. In fact, I think that Nine’s particular opposition to domestics has to do with this particular sense of guilt and necessary independence. It is not simply that it is more convenient not to stick around and get involved; it is that he feels that he does not deserve this particular level of communion with other people. We know that Time Lords/Gallifreyans are a telepathic race, even though it is not necessarily one of their primary modes of communication. They can sense one another’s unique presences, and they exhibit various abilities throughout the series that they can perform with this telepathic ability. Their relationships with TARDISes are generally personable and symbiotic in some ways. That TARDISes are living creatures embedded within the structures around them that have these incredible abilities including time travel (apparently mechanically aided?) and universal translation. However, in this episode, this universal translation is denied to anyone but the Doctor until the very end.

Initially, all we hear are grunts and growls and gurgles as the Doctor speaks with the Nestene Consciousness. However, during the moments when the Doctor realizes that he is in over his head and has doomed the human race by allowing the Nestene Consciousness to go into a full-on, violent panic attack, he looks to Rose for help. When he does this, we - the audience - hear the Nestene Consciousness’s growls become suddenly intelligible in English. Amid what we know were accusations about the Doctor’s being at fault during the Time War, it hisses at him accusingly: “Time Lord.” This moment of understanding and clarity doesn’t mean anything to Rose at the moment in terms of the words themselves. Rather, her comprehension represents a moment of connection - telepathic connection - between the Doctor, Rose, and the TARDIS. At the Doctor’s plea and will, Rose has been recruited into something. He stares at her pleadingly, hoping that she will have mercy in spite of his stubbornness and help. She does. I love this, and from the very first moment I noticed ten years ago, i wondered why, in particular, Doctor/Rose shippers rarely ever talked about it. It is a fantastic moment. (Gifset.)

When Rose springs into action, her monologue rationalizing this insane, life-risking behavior to herself seems more universally applicable now than it was in 2005. “I’ve got no A-Levels, no job, no future,” she says as she tries to work a length of chain free. She looks to her long-past experience on a gymnastics team as a deep well of experience and just a hint of confidence that she can do this physically demanding task of swooping in to save the Doctor. Ultimately, it isn’t the most visually impressive of convincing scene (she doesn’t actually hit but one of the dummies that I can tell), the spirit behind the build-up is something that nearly every millennial has grown into empathizing with, I’m afraid.

Running Away from Responsibility

The episode doesn't particularly address the fallout of the Autons attacking people all around London. Perhaps this is one reason for the accidental time-skip when Rose comes back from her initial travel with the Doctor. RTD made the decision to include more of the "domestics" - the implications that it would actually have for a person, particularly a young woman, to willingly disappear with an alien for an indeterminate amount of time. But there is the fact that, as I said before, the Doctor lost in this situation, and he doesn't really stay behind to see the aftermath. I might revisit this idea later.

When the danger has passed and the Doctor takes Rose and Mickey above-ground to drop them off, we have the pivotal moment of the Doctor asking Rose to come along. He has already made his choice, as pointed out above. However, I really like the fact that Rose initially turns him down and gives her mother and looking after Mickey as reasons. It may not be her obligation or responsibility to look after Mickey, but it shows that she cares. I feel like if one removed the part where she initially turns down the offer, it would make the way in which she ultimately accepts far less sympathetic. It is far more sympathetic to think that the reason Rose goes along with the Doctor with such a barbed goodbye to Mickey is the notion that the Doctor came back for her to give her an opportunity. It would seem that this is a lure to her that sort of plays on her untapped potential and not simply her thirst for adventure.

I would still say that it is still not the best look Rose ever has and that it shows that she, the Doctor, and Mickey, all have a lot of growth and maturation to do. Of course, Mickey is rather useless in this first episode, but Rose is quite self-absorbed. Rose has the legitimate excuse of being traumatized for bits of it, but it is apparent from her characterization that trauma isn’t all it is. Meanwhile, Mickey’s genuine trauma is played almost as a part of his being “useless,” when in reality it would be difficult to blame him. Like I said, I really think that the show is better for choosing to develop Mickey more after the first episode.

Conclusion

Some final thoughts: There is a lot of inappropriate grinning in this episode. A lot. I know that it is meant to show that the characters are having an exhilarating time if not a good time, but when one considers how seriously the show will take itself as time goes on, it’s frankly bizarre that both the Doctor and Rose are seen grinning like idiots as the Nestene Consciousness is dying from some kind of chemical reaction when the Doctor went in with the explicit purpose of giving it a chance to come to a peaceful resolution. Even if one can somehow parse out that the Nestene Consciousness is evil rather than just perceiving it as something with very different concerns and a different view of morality due to its place on the food chain as it were, grinning through an execution one was trying to avoid is just... a bit... strange. Growing pains of a new show, let’s say. Another such growing pain that is perhaps less a mark on the show than a sign of sadly changing times, I wonder if the show were produced today if it would choose a mass shooting in a public place like a mall with casualties as the centerpiece of its human, civilian-affecting drama. (Also of note, it would seem that maybe Clara Oswald’s mother was one of the victims, though I don’t know if this was ever wholly confirmed or not.)

Arbitrary Ratings

Story ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Characterization ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Aesthetic ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Overall ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Considerations for Watching with Parents or Kids (Depending on Your of Their Ages)

I have no idea if I’ll keep this section or not as I continue on with this project. However, I thought that in the interest of making this slightly useful in some way, I would list off things that might be of concern to parents (as at this point I know some nerdy young mothers). I’m not an advocate for the over-sheltering of children, and I was watching Law & Order with my parents at age six or seven. However, it is useful to be armed about the progression of exposure that your kids might have to something or to be aware of the questions they might have so you aren’t caught off-guard if you are watching something together for the first time. I’m an educator, so it seems like something I might be able to ferret out. On the flip-side, if you’re anything like me, you don’t have children of your own yet. However, in efforts to make your parents understand who you are and your interests, you might have made an effort to watch things with them, only to have them give you sidelong, judgmental or confused stares as there are elements of sexuality, mysticism, really out-there science fiction, or simply a villain espousing some genuinely reprehensible views that your darling mother simply does not even like hearing about. So, if you’re a teenager (or a millennial still living at home) hoping to share a certain show with your family but are so desensitized to the f-bomb that you don’t even hear it until your parents are in the room, I am here for you!

Without further ado:

This episode is super-tame in terms of anything that I think most parents would raise their eyebrows at. There are a few sexual references, but they are of a nature that I think most children who are too young for sexual references would simply not catch on to anything out of the ordinary. The only “swear words” Doctor Who ever uses are uses of by-word religious references (e.g. “Oh my God,” etc.), “hell,” and “damn.” The violence in Doctor Who varies from fantastical and light to somewhat more realistic, but in this particular episode, there is a concern about gun violence imagery in particular. A death occurs in nearly every Doctor Who episode, but they are rarely on-screen or realistically graphic.

A handy bullet-list of potentially sensitive topics/moments:

Jackie, Rose’s mother, has certain stereotypical traits given to her that suggest her playing the welfare system for compensation or money.

When the Doctor enters Rose’s apartment and Rose excuses his presence by saying he is part of the inquiry into the explosion of her workplace, Jackie insists that Rose is worthy of financial compensation for her trauma. She then proceeds to offer the Doctor sexual favors (”anything could happen”), presumably to help Rose’s case in this matter.

When Rose goes to Mickey’s apartment to ask to use her computer, he tells her to “kit off.” For my fellow Americans, this is a request for her to strip off her clothes that is sexual in nature. It is said in a joking tone, though. It is followed up by his saying that she will find any excuse to get in the bedroom.

The Autons have somewhat realistic-looking gun barrels in their hands which they reveal by their “fingers” rotating to one side to show a cut away portion of their plastic hands. The greatest human peril in the episode is when the Nestene Consciousness attempts to complete its plans very rapidly at all the shop-window dummies at a mall come to life. Gunfire in public both in the mall and on the street outside are depicted, and it is implied that several people are killed as a result. Jackie is nearly shot at point-blank range by several of the Autons before Rose manages to help the Doctor put a stop to the Consciousness. Depictions of mass hysteria due to “gun violence.”

Support

As you might imagine, this post took quite a long time to write. I am an English teacher who is currently without a full-time job. If you enjoyed reading this analysis or found it useful in any way and you are over 20 years old, please consider buying me a coffee. If you can’t do that, don’t want to do that, or are under 20 years old, I would still love if if you would reblog, reply, respond, or like - anything to let me know you enjoyed it if you did. I realize that these posts are long, but they are always tagged “#long post” in addition to other tags if you want to filter when you see them in the tag or on your dashboard if you choose to follow!

#doctor who #doctor who meta #doctor who series 1 #rose tyler #nine #the doctor #review #prixmiumtext #prixmiumtextdw #mickey smith #jackie tyler #autons #nestene consciousness #long post

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prixmiumcontent · 7 years ago

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Doctor Who Introduction Post

Hello #Doctor Who! My “name” is Prix, and I am about to embark on a re-watch of Doctor Who during which I will be writing reviews and other such commentary on this new meta blog. Please see the links and pages around the blog for more information if you are interested. Before I get started, I wanted to take a few moments to articulate why I am writing about Doctor Who, how I feel about it, and why I decided to start with it here even though I plan to write about it and many other fandoms.

The Present

At the time of writing this, I am 27 years old. I am a school teacher, but I am currently without a full-time position. Given that I have a little bit of time on my hands, I really wanted to work on my sustained writing-for-pleasure skills, and this blog seemed like a good way to do it. I have a personal blog, which I will follow from if I follow you back, but this is a fresh start for a more disciplined approach to running an actual-blog rather than a big mess of blogging, reblogging, and flailing. Doctor Who continues to be one of those things that always draws me back in. However, over the past couple of years, I have not been quite as on top of it as I once was. Letting go of Clara Oswald has proved to be very difficult for me, so while I like Bill - and the other companions I have seen - I have not seen all of S10. As a result, I haven’t even started on S11. However, I hope to very soon! While I am embarking on a full re-watch of Doctor Who (2005), I won’t necessarily prevent myself from catching up on everything I’m missing before I finish this up.

The Past

I was an avid internet user from the time I was about twelve years old. I was home-schooled for a time, and so much of my interaction with the outside world came through meeting people to talk to through AIM (may she rest in peace.) One of those people that I befriended (and have since unbefriended) was a young man five years my senior with a lot of chronic health problems. Given our mutual circumstances, for the good years of our relationship, we were able to find time to talk to each other despite a five-hour time difference. He lived in England, and I was so young that the concept of world geography was something well beyond my grasp as an American. Nevertheless, I had an adolescence very colored by a sort of cultural exchange with this friend of mine whom I much respected and wanted to please. I dimly remember his first mentions of Doctor Who being revived and his confusing explanations of what it was registering as a simple footnote in our conversations. It was something he watched on Saturdays. For a while, that was that.

Fast forward to the end of 2006. Due to various circumstances including my grandmother’s having a stroke and my parents’ mutual concern that as math and science courses became more difficult that a home-schooling curriculum wouldn’t cut it from them, I returned to public school. I was fifteen, and I was tagging along behind my peers who had been new students to high school the previous year. This new-to-everything, fish-out-of-water experience left me vulnerable to a certain individual whom I wish I had never met but who has shaped much of who I am today. I was in a relationship with him for a couple of months, during which I was emotionally abused and coerced in ways that I won’t go into detail about. The only part that is relevant is that this relationship really shook my ability to trust in people to the core. I was a different person from August to December and one who felt hollowed-out at that.

It was a relief to finally be on Winter Break, if only to get away from the presence of my then-ex who continued to follow and harass me while I was at school. However, the experiences of the past couple of months had taken the joy out of most of what I had been doing. I had been loosely into online fandom since about 2003, but I had never really learned the tools of the trade, and it was just a matter of happening upon people with similar interests through word-of-mouth and a few fanfiction.net-made contacts. I was still talking to my English friend online when I could.

Then, one day, I was feeling very depressed and lethargic. I took a break from vacuuming the house, and I turned on the television. I dully watched the scrolling TV Guide Channel, and I noticed that the SciFi Channel (it wasn’t SyFy at this point) was running a marathon of Doctor Who. Curiously, I changed the channel.

I watched “The Idiot’s Lantern,” an episode from Series 2, with no context whatsoever. I was confused and mildly intrigued. More than anything, I wanted to tell my English friend that I had finally seen an episode. He did his best to explain the show to me a bit better, and later that day I found myself tempted to tune back in.

In the days that intervened between that day and Christmas Day, the channel played at least several hours of Doctor Who episodes per day. They were marathoning Series 2, and on Christmas Day itself, they were going to play “The Christmas Invasion” - the Christmas Special spanning the gap between Series 1 and Series 2. I was supposed to go to my grandmother’s, but I made a point to note what times they were showing it. I was invested already, and soon I had seen “Doomsday” and knew that my heart was going to break no matter what but that I wanted to know more and more about this show.

I remember going to my room after returning from my grandmother’s that day. I know that I had been showing signs of my depression and lethargy, and while my parents didn’t know the full extent of the damage my brief foray into trying to be “in a relationship” as a high school student had gone, they were most certainly concerned about me.

My mom and dad were in the living room visiting with someone - it was Christmas - and I remember feeling a sudden rush of energy and resolve come over me that I had not felt in a long time. My relationship with fandom may not be the healthiest that has ever been, but I don’t think that it is a bad thing either. I have always been one to fixate, to have maladaptive daydreams about those things I love, and to feel a rush of endorphins when I find something new to add to my collection of beloved stories. I fall in love with my fandoms, and they’re my friends.

That hadn’t been true for months at that point, though, and Doctor Who breathed new life into my teenage bones when I was - justified or not - dangling by a thread. The particular scene that burned itself into my consciousness was Ten’s speech to the Sycorax - “It is defended.” I’m not even sure why, but it kind of gave me a little bit of a kick in the butt to get back up, to try, and to feel something again.

I often tell people that Doctor Who saved my life, and that’s how. It gave me a friend when I felt like I had none. It gave me energy, purpose, and a reminder that even when things are difficult and it feels like there is no reward for the things one tries to do because they feel like the right thing, there still is a point to it. I consumed Series 2 in order as quickly as I could; I was a poor teenager and wanted to make sure that I got the series i had fallen in love with before deciding on more. Then, I manage to get Series 1 and watched them back to back. At the time, it was nowhere near as popular in the US as it became later, so I paid $60-70 per season at the time. I never did get past Series 2 on DVD as a result. Maybe one day I’ll buy a huge boxed set, but for now I make do with streaming on Amazon Prime for the most part.

I hope that this personal glimpse into my past will give you some kind of connection to me as a writer and that you will understand how much Doctor Who means to me as a show.

The Future

I plan to watch an episode or two most days for the foreseeable future and to write a post and create at least one edit per episode that I watch. I hope to queue them after the first couple so I can have a consistently active blog. Please feel free to interact with me! I follow back from my personal blog (currently polyroci), but I am very interested in interacting with people about this and other fandoms that are dear to my heart.

#doctor who #doctor who meta

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