DW Reaction Post: The Crimson Horror--Also Speculation About the 50th

[amberfocus]

So this wasn't the worst episode I've seen, but it wasn't on par with the rest of the second half of season 7. I'm about equally divided on what I liked and didn't like.

Things I didn't like:

1. Madam Vastra--I am so over her. I am tired of there being a Lizard Lady in Victorian England and she hasn't been picked up by the police or had attempts made on her life by the community, because humans as a rule are not that tolerant. Especially back then. She doesn't even try to hide what she is. I mean that veil might as well not even be there the way she lifts it. She'd be shot on sight or lynched. That's the reality.

2. That Sontaran whatever the heck his name is. He's not comic relief. He's just...stupid. And also running around in Victorian England, where anyone can see him. See point # 1.

3. Fainting once was funny, fainting twice was pushing it, and fainting three times was ridiculous. By the time we got there he'd surely seen enough things to not be so surprised by a vanishing TARDIS.

4. The Doctor kissing Jenny. On the mouth.
A. Not Invited
B. Not welcome
C. He knew she was a lesbian in a committed relationship. He was basically kissing someone else's spouse. I understand his exuberance, but a hug would have done and not been...I don't know, intrinsically wrong. I wonder if this would have been thought of as "funny" (i.e. ha ha, the Doctor kissed a lesbain) if he had kissed a straight man with a wife or a straight woman with a husband? I'm glad she decked him.

5. Hello, puppet department? Go rent Farscape and see how it is done. That leech was ridiculous.

6. Funny, I don't remember any photographs of the four of them being taken in the episode in the haunted house. Now there might have been one taken with Victorian era Clara, possibly, but I just don't think so. I mean a governess in a family portrait? It wouldn't have been her place. Also, if the kids I was nanny for had said they'd tell their dad I was a time traveller, I would have said to go ahead. Besides, those photos could have been explained away with a bit of creativity. Easily. I mean, just because it's on the internet, doesn't make it so.

7. The episode kind of felt dumbed down. I know that Doctor Who is and always will be a children's show, but my kids are smarter than this. Come on.

What I liked:

1. Jenny. 1000 times Jenny. I loved her martial arts skills and the way she took down the "super models." I loved her lockpicking kit and I loved how she's fearless.

2. That Jenny slapped the Doctor for kissing her. He deserved it. What he did was inappropriate on so many levels.

3. Ada. Her strength in standing up to her mother at the end. I was so hoping that the Doctor would be able to heal her. After all that darn sonic has been able to do just about anything else.

4. Clara. Not near enough of her, but she was awesome with that chair. "I've got a sonic screwdriver," well, yeah, but "I've got a chair." The sonic is being used for everything lately. It's like the Doctor is never thinking of other ways to do things, so I love that Clara is. This is a problem she can solve the old fashioned way. The screwdriver is turning into a bit of a deus ex machina.

5. The steampunk rocket. I just thought it was cool. I also liked the victrolas making factory noises, but I wished they'd made reference to them.

6. Anyone else think that the computerish thingy on the back of the pipe organ might be related to Mr. Smith from the The Sarah Jane Adventures or is that just me? How cool would that be? I forget Mr. Smith's origins, but a steampunk younger version of him would have been great. It's not like canon matters anymore, they are rewriting it so often, so they could have rewrote it here.

7. Aside from the bad puppet leech, I did like the idea of the villain being a parasite leftover from the Silurian's time. It was new and unique which has been really rare since SM took the reins. It didn't feel recycled.

8. I'm glad the kids are going on the TARDIS. I don't like the manipulative manner that they used to blackmail Clara, but clearly the Doctor is going to go along with it based on the preview.

9. Kudos for the Tegan reference.

And also based on the preview, "Hello, I am Lucretious of the Borg." No, wait, I mean, "I am the Doctor of the Cybermen." Oh, or better yet, Eleven of Twelve instead of Seven of Nine. Back to recycling plots, and this time other people's apparently. Not an homage. Looking more like a rip off. And who thought it would be a good idea to have Cybermen in an amusement park? I hope the episode actually is good. It looks like it could go either way.

Oh, well, lots of feelings going on. Which, you know, is better than the rather hopeless way in which I watched season six and the first half of season seven.

As for the speculation, I have been thinking of the 50th Anniversary special and I am going to mention some spoilers going around just so you can run away now if you want.

The idea that they are going to rewrite the Ninth Doctor so he's totally different and not Christopher Eccleston. I have a hard time believing they would be so dishonorable to the man that relaunched the franchise. But then again, people can be very, very stupid sometimes.

The idea that they will erase Rose from the Doctor's life. To me it doesn't make sense, and again it dishonors someone who was strongly responsible for a succesful relaunch of the franchise. People can bitch and moan about Rose all they want, and whine about how romance shouldn't be on the TARDIS, but that relationship and the way it was is what made Doctor Who so successful when it came back. It was what we invested in. I know SM is set in his vision of DW, but I don't think he would really want that many fans to turn on him, no matter what he says. I think (hope) he's just trolling us.

The idea that someone is trying to kill the Doctor by wiping out all of his past lives, killing each one so that they never existed, and that Clara (or clones of her) has to jump through time trying to stop it being why she is all over the place and being killed off over and over again. At first I thought they wouldn't really do this, erase all of them. Or she'd be able to prevent the Doctor dying over and over again, but only by sacrificing herself over and over again. But then I thought...I thought, what if they did kill him? What if they took him back over and over and over again until he was One? Young and One. One before Susan.

And he survives because Clara finally saves him and she goes travelling with him. Starting the Doctor all over again with a familiar companion and a new first Doctor and giving them that many more regenerations to use. And all of a sudden that does make sense. Because there is only one regeneration left. And it gives us back the Time Lords and takes away the Time War. And it would explain the Doctor being erased from history in The Asylum of the Daleks, bringing it full circle. And honestly, I hate the idea of anyone trying to erase any of the Doctors, because I have loved them all, but it would be a kick ass way to reinvent the wheel. And it would be a plot twist I could respect. Just please, please, please, with a different show runner at the helm, one who is not so terribly self-indulgent. Because it could be done well. But it could also be done in a way that ruins everything that ever came before for everyone.

Comments

[sinecure.livejournal.com]

Agreed, on, well, everything. I actually found this episode boring. I did like the flashbacks looking like old-time video with scratches and whatnot.

The whole thing with Madame Vastra and Jenny and the Sontaran guy, I feel like they're trying to set up a spinoff with them. Which, just... no.

And if Moffat does end up doing that with Rose and Nine and Ten never having met Rose, I'm so done with this show. You can't just re-write the history that we've all grown to love and we revisit so much. And if he took it back even further? I'll blow a couple of gaskets, hoping they hit Moffat square in his misogynistic face.