Flesh and Stone: rewatch

[eve11]

It's never been more important.



Watching it again for the details.

The first scene with the door is just fantastic.

"Well it's a time bomb. Well it's a death trap and a time bomb, and now it's a dead end. Nobody panic." *gets frightened but calm looks as the Angels pound the doors* "Oh. Just me, then."

"What if the gravity fails?"
"I've thought about that."
"And?"
"And we'll all plunge to our deaths. See, I've thought about it."

"I absolutely trust him."
"He's not some kind of madman, then."
... "I absolutely trust him."

Also, the angels advancing in the strobe of the gunfire is a very cool visual. Moving on!

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The flight to the forest:

"Bought us time though, and that's good. I am good with time."

And the second bit in as many episodes where everyone except for the audience figures something out, and leaves us foundering in the dark for a few seconds for the effect. In real life, they would confirm things, "Of course, an oxygen factory."

"A forest in a bottle in a space ship in a maze; have I impressed you yet, Amy Pond?"

"Because you haven't noticed yet, sir. The Doctor in the TARDIS hasn't noticed."
Echoing Prisoner Zero from the first episode. "The Doctor in the TARDIS doesn't know." It's almost sing-song-y (more so in the first case of course), like the bad guys are just lumping The-Doctor-in-the-TARDIS together as one being. Strange.

Now I'm wondering who says "Do... Not... Blink..." at the end of that control room scene. What with the knowledge that we get from later on. I figured it was just a voiceover. Perhaps it is. But then he says "Why am I not dead yet? Good and not so good." Perhaps there is someone else in the room (eta: through the crack?) who is looking at the angels. Perhaps? Arg!

"Never let me talk!" heh.

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In the woods, Amy is falling prey to the angels. What's interesting is that this is only 12:30 into the episode. The pace is very fast in this ep but it still seems to work better than Victory of the Daleks when the Dalek came alive about now.

"I'll do a thing."
"what kind of thing?"
"I don't know, it's a thing in progress. Respect the thing!"

The scene with Amy in the forest, where they leave her behind: Oh, aikea_guinea, you are good. You are good and I am thick. How many times did I watch that scene? It was one of the three pre-released clips that I watched a bunch on Friday. And I never caught this, which you shared with me: At the part where Amy is in the Forest and the Doctor leaves, then 'comes back...' This isn't the same Doctor. He obviously lost his jacket to the Angels only a few minutes prior, and yet in this scene he has it back on. We're shown he's got the sleeves up as well, and after this he's shown with his shirtsleeves down, so I don't think this was a continuity mistake. I'm wondering if 'Remember what I told you when you were seven' is going to show up again. And he seemed really upset.

You are So Freaking Right. But all that does is bring up some more questions. Did he come through the crack, trying to re-write time? Is he all in her head? Why is he so upset? What truth isn't he telling her; he just got done (in the forest timeline) telling River that it made no sense to lie to her. When I first saw that scene his raw emotion really got to me. I was a bit disappointed to see it not really reflected in the rest of the scene but now, oh man, this means something really bad is coming, doesn't it? And it also means we have to wait to figure it out, probably until the very end of the series.

ETA: and I'm wondering if the bit about him telling her something when she was seven was toward the end of The Eleventh Hour when they cut to little Amelia still outside in the dawn, suitcase packed, frowning, and hearing the TARDIS and then looking up... and then waking up as older Amy. What if that wasn't a dream? How is the Doctor muzzing these time lines and not going all Time Lord Victorious like last time?

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"Before you sent Pedro, you sent Crispin and Philip, and now you can't even remember them."
"Pedro?"
"Yeah, before you sent Pedro."
"Who's Pedro?"

This whole scene of people disappearing reminds me of something else... Star Trek maybe? The TNG episode where Dr. Crusher is stuck in the warp bubble and everyone keeps disappearing. So they are being unwritten, except time travelers can sense the differences. Again I wonder if the crack ate up Amy's parents back in Leadworth.

"I wish I'd known you better."
"I think sir, you've known me at my best."

I liked Octavian. Good that the Doctor realized he gave him too hard of a time. None of the clerics survived this episode. And Crispin, Philip, Pedro and the other guy got erased from history, not even any families to tell about their end. Or their non-beginning.

"Ready?"
"Content."

Oh, my heart breaks at this scene. Crazy ridiculous as it is, they still make the emotions of it work.

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And oh, I forgot about the notion that River kills... someone... wouldn't it just seal it if the first time River met the Doctor, she killed him, and then the first time the Doctor meets River, he kills her. But she tells him "Maybe when you're older" at the "I could kiss you!" line (HA!), so that's assuming that she knows him for some older faces. Unless time is being rewritten and she goes back and meets some of his younger, older, faces. Ow, my brain hurts now.

"I look forward to it."
"I remember it well."

Now that sounds like a line from a fairy tale :)

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I think I kind of understand the scene at the end. They needed to introduce the whole wedding date thing, so it wasn't completely out of left field; it had a reason to be there plotwise. Though Amy's seduction really-- well, let's just say, it's still miles easier to watch than the beach scene at the end of Journey's End. Amy does seem very immature though. For some reason I keep comparing and contrast this scene to the scene in Angel the series, from the episode with the telekinetic girl with daddy issues, where she tries to seduce Angel or at least "have some fun". But of course that is the Joss-verse and girls and sex are always messed up in that world. Anyway, after the revelation from aikea_guinea I feel the need to just gawp and be like, dude, WTH is going on? And go back and look at the previous episodes and see if there's any other indications of timey-wimeyness.

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

Firstly you quoted almost all my favourite lines and I think I agree with you about just about everything there, and, secondly... *is stunned*

You're right. Now, that is interesting! Wonder what else is weird?

[eve11]

I'm wondering if it isn't something to do with young Amelia from the end of The Eleventh Hour. Where we think it might just be a dream where she hears the TARDIS and looks up... maybe he does come back and tell her something, and she doesn't remember?

[thisbluespirit]

Oh, I am hopeless at theorising!! :lol:

But this proves the one thought I did have, which is the feeling that a lot of what's happened so far might look very different by the end and need much rewatching. :-)

[jenlev.livejournal.com]

Good points. There's definitely something Timey-Wimey going on. :)

PS. Watched some more...am relieved I didn't hallucinate the part about the coat. Am feeling pretty astounded at the layers and potential. You've motivated me to add to the thinky thoughts in my post.

I like a show that makes me think!

[astralagos.livejournal.com]

I think the 'seduction' scene really serves two purposes: the first is to further cement the idea that there's something basically broken about Amy. We've had hints from the start that she's off-kilter, with things like the lockpicks and the ability to catch people engaged in casual theft. I think the Doctor still basically thinks of her as the dreaming little girl he met at age 7, as opposed to the JD she appears to be now.


I think the other goal is to close the door on part of the RTD interpretation. NuWho spent several episodes exploring the Doctor's sexuality and romance: Rose and Doctor as lovers, Martha as unrequited lover, and Donna as platonic companion, also experiences with Madame Du Pompadour and Elizabeth I. However, if he's sleeping with or involved with every companion, it gets creepy. So I think Moffatt is explicitly clamping down on this, but not exactly turning him into the asexual entity he was in the original series. Partly, he can hang River Song in the background, but he also brings up the Doctor's objections in the bedroom scene - the Doctor is 45 times Amy's age, he doesn't age but regenerates, and so on. RTD even acknowledged those by spitting out a separate Doctor to go with Rose, but I think the idea here is to clamp down on the issue early on and let it rest there for the rest of the Moffatt era.

I'm also beginning to believe that there are two Doctors running around at the moment. It's worth noting that for a 'time travel' show, Doctor Who rarely touches on the causality part of time travel, they avoid writing episodes like that and instead usually just bounce to a location in the first episode and then bounce off at the end. They've written justification for it with this 'fixed point' business, but by emphasizing that time can be rewritten, and then demonstrating that causality has just gone blooey, they've opened the door for that possibility. The other thing, of course, is that the fact that the Doctor lost his jacket is very heavily emphasized in the eppy - you've got a scene of the angels holding it. Given that, I think the fact that he is very subtly wearing his jacket in that scene (and what the hell does that scene have to do with anything else in the episode anyway?), the emphasis on memory (again showing up throughout this year), points to it not being a continuity error but thematic. Even more so because the scene emphasis his sleeveless wrists.

[eve11]

Yeah, I agree completely about the bedroom scene; just thought it was a bit clunky. Moffat is totally spitting in Rusty's eye whenever he gets a chance. Makes me wonder how discontent he was with the episodes that weren't his!

I completely agree about the two doctors running around. But how did he make it past the clerics so quickly? They were all watching everywhere in the forest. so maybe he was just in her head? I don't know. My thought is that maybe "what I told you when you were seven" has to do with the little coda bit to The Eleventh Hour when little Amelia hears the TARDIS at the end, even though it apparently never came. She's forgotten something, maybe she's forgotten that he came back to talk to her that morning?

PS: here I thought you were just going to say "dissertation" and run away... ;)

[astralagos.livejournal.com]

That would explain the "young Amy scene" as well, which always sort of hung at the end of the first episode.

I don't know if I'd say he's spitting, so much as putting his own stamp on it. At some level, I think what's happening is each of them are squealing little Who fanboys (case in point, from Moffatt's claim to fame show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYuV6zcJVPU ) and they're putting their own stamps on things. The Doctor's asexual relationship with companions is the first thing any grown-up Who fan is gonna touch, but it really was becoming a dead end in later RTD series.

As for your dissertation, I'm only going to mention that when you start mentioning burning vast amounts of time on some craft or writing project that can be put off for a couple of months :)

[eve11]

lol, behind the sofa is UK canon.

I'm only going to mention that when you start mentioning burning vast amounts of time on some craft or writing project that can be put off for a couple of months :)

Aw, thanks! (though yesterday I spent the majority of the afternoon mulching the front yard instead of writing.)

[alephnul.livejournal.com]

and what the hell does that scene have to do with anything else in the episode anyway?

Yes, this. Even more than the jacket oddity, which could have just been a flub like the heavily emphasized 1990 on Rory's name badge, it is the fact that that scene makes no sense in sequence. The doctor leaves Amy and runs off into the woods, then suddenly he is back to... reassure her somehow? No, to tell her that she needs to remember something he told her, not to think about it, but to remember it. Then he's gone, and she doesn't remember whatever it was she needs to remember, and it never comes up again. It makes no sense in sequence, but it is extremely interesting as part of something out of sequence.

[aikea-guinea.livejournal.com]

"And go back and look at the previous episodes and see if there's any other indications of timey-wimeyness."

Yeah, I'm definitely feeling the need to rewatch everything so far. Can't wait to see how this all plays out!