(no subject)

[eve11]

I don't know what to say about this one. Because it ripped out my heart and made my cry big ugly tears. Even the 4th time I watched it; big ugly tears. This one of all the new Who series felt the most like a classic episode in all the ways that the classic episodes were amazing. The strange setting. The sedate pace. The peril, the side characters. Capaldi being absolutely brilliant, channeling the best of Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker and Peter Davison but also undeniably Twelve; kind and compassionate, vulnerable and flawed, still trying to do his best when he can't win. Rule number one no longer applies. The Doctor doesn't lie, but he also isn't right. And one of the saddest parts of the story is that he will never know the truth about Missy; that she did, at the very end, decide to stand with him, and was killed by her own self before she could make good on it.

It felt like old school also because of Missy and the Master, given enough space to breathe as characters on their own in what amounts to a rather small potatoes setting. John Simm's appearances always coincided with such over-the-top scenarios, it is refreshing to see him not as the embodiment of the doom of the Earth, but as a guy who sometimes just gets his damned TARDIS stuck and has to make the best of it after his world domination plans fall through. This is the Master down on his luck, at a dead end, and at the same time twisted enough to still bend all of his resources to ruining the Doctor because he can. And I have to say, the scene where he goads cyber-Bill with his Razor persona is so excruciatingly painful that I had to skip past it on rewatch.

Speaking of Bill, Pearl Mackie was phenomenal, and I don't care how out of the blue her ending was, I am so, SO glad she is saved. And so, so sad she will likely be leaving. But then again, Heather gave Bill her tears and it led her back to her when she needed her most. And Bill is like her, and gave the Doctor her tears. So maybe she will be back. Even so, if she is, she won't be back as a Companion, maybe not even as a human. Her role is now unequivocally changed.

"I don't want to live if I can't be me," she tells the Doctor, and he understands more than she knows. He has lived for a long, long time in this body, longer than all the others put together I'd wager, even not counting the 4.5 billion years he was in the confession dial. Like Five, he's not saving the world, he's just trying to survive long enough to save a few people for a little while. And he makes it, until he doesn't, and says "Time Enough" and embraces death instead of change. Eleven was always surrounded by his friends; Twelve is the Doctor who fails them and loses them and sends them away, and is still purely himself, alone at the end.

And as big and ugly as those tears were that I cried with Bill when she found him in the wasteland, that is how much the meeting of Twelve and One at the end made me smile, and keeps making me smile. How did this episode rip my heart out and still make me smile?

Last week, nonelvis mentioned that the 10th Planet was up on Dailymotion.uk. So I watched it. Good timing, that. Because now we're back at that base, and the Doctor's gone walkabout, it seems, and met himself along the way. The question is, if neither of them wants to change, who is going to be the one to convince the other? How is either of them going to go through a whole episode at the razor edge of regeneration? So I want Christmas to come, and I don't, because I want Twelve to stay as well.

Comments

[vilakins]

With you on all of that. I was very nervous going in but so happy Bill was saved - and I didn't see how it was even possible. I'm glad water girl has also remembered and become herself too. To track Bill through space and time though, I think she had a drop of herself on the TARDIS.

Was that meant to be One? It didn't look like him. I hope he's not Zero and we have to renumber!

[eve11]

Definitely One, very likely from the near the end of the Tenth Planet. He's got the hat and the white scarf and the cloak from that episode. He's played by David Bradley who played William Hartnell in the 50th special "An Adventure in Space and Time" (which I also watched today).

[vilakins]

Cool! Was that special shown as part of the TV series? I don't remember it.

[eve11]

It was made as part of the 50th anniversary celebration a few years back. Worth watching for sure. It's up on dailymotion.uk part 1 with a link to part 2 after.

(I should say, it's the story of how Doctor Who first came about in 1963 through 1966)

[profrobert]

I think you're right about it being at the end of Tenth Planet -- it would not surprise me if the snowscape turns out to be the South Pole, and the First Doctor on his way back to the TARDIS at the end of the fourth episode just before he regenerates.

[eve11]

That's my thought too. Full circle. a_phoenixdragon also points out that Twelve is kind of like the First doctor of round 2 of regenerations, so it's fitting that he doesn't want to change either.

[clocketpatch]

Just saw it, and am currently in the stage of being broken and weepy and reading other people's reactions to try and come to terms with all of the things that happened. I had a feeling throughout this series, with all of the references, that Susan might be showing up at some point, and I'd heard some rumours about David Bradley reprising his role from An Adventure in Space in Time in a very meta way...

but I wasn't expecting things to happen like this. I was straight up crying for a bit. Can't wait for Christmas for sure!

[eve11]

Well I've finally got to the point where I'm not rewatching it obsessively. I am at the point where I wish I had writing mojo for Twelve. I don't, so I'm stalking AO3 instead.

I am definitely looking forward to Christmas. I don't particularly like the weather or the season, so it can still take its time. Until then I'll just have to look forward to the Defenders coming out in August.