Doctor Who
Oct. 10th, 2010 08:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fabrisseI loved Doctor Who when I was a kid, until I was so badly frightened by Medusa -- long story -- that Mom forbade my watching it anymore. Two was my doctor.
Over the years, I occasionally caught an episode. If it was on PBS, I'd see an entire arc, usually with Tom Baker, but, for instance, I don't think I saw an entire arc with Pertwee or Davison, and I never saw any of the other Doctors at all.
One night in California, I was flipping through channels and hit Sci-fi, back before it was SyFy *shudder*, and came in at the very beginning of the episode The Girl in the Fireplace. There was The Doctor, different, but the same in David Tennant. From then on, I watched faithfully and even caught up with virtually all of the Eccleston episodes. (My favorite nine episode, besides Empty Child/The Doctor Dances was Boom Town.)
Since today was 10/10/10 as someone at the TWoP Motivator thread reminded me, I broke out my 10th incarnation DVDs and had a day watching them.
Seeing them after we've moved onto Eleven, and after the sadness of "I don't want to go," it struck me how much the themes of loneliness were struck from the very beginning. He doesn't know what kind of man he is when he first regenerates, but by the end of The Christmas Invasion, he knows he doesn't give "second chances." This is borne out by his treatment of Harriet Jones when she violates an agreement he'd made with the Sycorax. The recurring "I'm so sorry" motif begins in the next episode. And Ten is sorry for so many things -- those beyond his control as much as those he caused.
He clings to Rose as a constant, but he meets Sarah Jane and Madame du Pompadour and, for me at least, Rose suffers in comparison. How I wish that Reinette had come aboard the TARDIS to see all the stars -- her mind and her stalwart maturity could have made a great contrast to Rose -- and might have filled some of the holes.
Eleven hasn't grabbed me. I think, in spite of how much I love many of Moffat's episodes, that it has more to do with the showrunner than the actor playing Eleven.
By the time Tennant left, well, we'd had The Waters of Mars an episode where he is no longer sorry and tries not to be lonely by violating all the rules he knows of the universe. He was regenerated from taking all the power of the heart of the TARDIS from Rose and, more than any other of the doctors, was about power and its uses. Some were subtle; some were not. And -- more than any of the Doctors I've watched -- some were sexual, even if they weren't really explored.
So years later, Two was The Doctor of my childhood. I would have loved to join him in his adventures, but Ten is MY Doctor.
Over the years, I occasionally caught an episode. If it was on PBS, I'd see an entire arc, usually with Tom Baker, but, for instance, I don't think I saw an entire arc with Pertwee or Davison, and I never saw any of the other Doctors at all.
One night in California, I was flipping through channels and hit Sci-fi, back before it was SyFy *shudder*, and came in at the very beginning of the episode The Girl in the Fireplace. There was The Doctor, different, but the same in David Tennant. From then on, I watched faithfully and even caught up with virtually all of the Eccleston episodes. (My favorite nine episode, besides Empty Child/The Doctor Dances was Boom Town.)
Since today was 10/10/10 as someone at the TWoP Motivator thread reminded me, I broke out my 10th incarnation DVDs and had a day watching them.
Seeing them after we've moved onto Eleven, and after the sadness of "I don't want to go," it struck me how much the themes of loneliness were struck from the very beginning. He doesn't know what kind of man he is when he first regenerates, but by the end of The Christmas Invasion, he knows he doesn't give "second chances." This is borne out by his treatment of Harriet Jones when she violates an agreement he'd made with the Sycorax. The recurring "I'm so sorry" motif begins in the next episode. And Ten is sorry for so many things -- those beyond his control as much as those he caused.
He clings to Rose as a constant, but he meets Sarah Jane and Madame du Pompadour and, for me at least, Rose suffers in comparison. How I wish that Reinette had come aboard the TARDIS to see all the stars -- her mind and her stalwart maturity could have made a great contrast to Rose -- and might have filled some of the holes.
Eleven hasn't grabbed me. I think, in spite of how much I love many of Moffat's episodes, that it has more to do with the showrunner than the actor playing Eleven.
By the time Tennant left, well, we'd had The Waters of Mars an episode where he is no longer sorry and tries not to be lonely by violating all the rules he knows of the universe. He was regenerated from taking all the power of the heart of the TARDIS from Rose and, more than any other of the doctors, was about power and its uses. Some were subtle; some were not. And -- more than any of the Doctors I've watched -- some were sexual, even if they weren't really explored.
So years later, Two was The Doctor of my childhood. I would have loved to join him in his adventures, but Ten is MY Doctor.
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Date: 2010-10-11 02:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-11 03:18 pm (UTC)