Wartys Dr. Who First Watch

Bill Potts vs Donna Noble - The greater tragedy

First of all, I am on record as saying that I don't think Donna Noble's ending was anywhere near as tragic as some I know think it was. She came out of her Doctor Who experience no worse than she went in. I get that viewers may see her living a boring and insignificant life, but personally I think that all life is significant and I think the story of Doctor Who tells that tale as well. Donna lost her memory of all that adventure... all that she had done, but she has no idea she even lost anything. As a matter of fact, she ends up finding a loving husband and she wins the lottery for goodness sake. She didn't just come out no worse... she came out better, and her loss is something she never even knew she had.

Bill Potts - I just described Donna from Donna's perspective, so I will do the same for Bill. Bill waited 10 years for a Doctor who never came, and she had to endure becoming a flippin' Cyberman. This is not something wiped from her memory... it's a torture she felt and remembers... by all accounts her's should have been the most tragic of companion tales, but enter Mr. Moffat and his need for happy endings. He takes this tragedy which could have added so much depth to the character and has her saved by being converted to a perceptive puddle. So now as PP... she has this super-uber happy ending where she can wander the stars with her girlfriend and never have to serve chips or feel like an outcast being gay and a person of colour.

For me... Bill was the more tragic of figures based on what she endured during life, but Moffat screwed it all up by having choose the right door on the after-life "Let's make a deal" show.

If you want to look at what she went through... Potts had a rougher deal. Donna didn't go through anything like that and has no memory of losing anything. However... while Donna won a lottery in real life, PP won the after-life lottery and will be diddling around the galaxy forever. She chose this as being better than a return to normal life, and if you take that position then Donna probably fared worse.

Me... I think Bill endured a more tortuous end to her physical life, but I don't see either as ultimately being a huge tragedy.

Nessess wrote:

That makes perfect sense, and tbh from my feminist perspective, if they go heavy handed with it they will achieve the opposite of what they are hoping for.  For this to be a really great cultural shift in entertainment the whole point has to be that The Doctor is The Doctor regardless of gender.

I agree with you completely, but... I see them as being in a no-lose situation, or perceiving that they are, and that it a set-up for failure. It would be horrific if they crash and burn the show with poorly-written episodes and trite garbage and then sit back amid the rubble and blame "haters" for the demise.

I have read several posts by dedicated Whovians who feel that a woman playing The Doctor is just fine with them but the wrong person has been chose to play the first female Doctor...they just can not stand Jodie Whitaker. I supposed you can't please everyone, oh well. The reason that Capaldi was a more believable Doctor than the "Bruce Willis with a blue box and a glowing adult toy" that Davies created was that Capaldi is vastly more skilled at acting than Ecclestion, Smith, or Tennant. It's the same rationale in play that, as much as Diana Rigg looked great in a black leather body suit fighting Soviet spies with Patrick McNee I would much rather watch her in something she did in the '80s or the '90s. There is nowhere in the English-speaking world like the theatres of London for helping actors to become masters of their craft...Broadway doesn't even come close.

I refuse to judge Jodi until I've seen a few episodes. I always hate the new Doctor. Everybody does. Somehow they've all always exceptionally managed to win us over. I mean hell, even Smith won Kelly in the end. I never thought that would happen.

I don't think anyone is pre-judging her... just a concern about a possibility.

TBC's comment about a "more believable Doctor" is a talking point I can't comment on. It must hearken back to the glory days when the Doctor's were all stodgy Shakespearean trained actors who said things like "Now see here, alien.. whatever your name may be. Do not trifle with me any longer or I am liable to become very cross with you, and I can assure you dear sir that I am not someone whom you want to be cross. It shall not go well in your favor"

I knew no Doctor prior to Eccleston and Tennant so they are how I define "believable Doctor". Capaldi was fine, but I found him no more or less believable than those that came before him. All of the actors
have just had their own take on the character.

I am looking forward to seeing what she brings to the table, just like I have done with every other Doctor who was new to me. One good thing is that I won't be distracted by her previous roles because I have never seen anything she has been in before.

Well my thoughts on the endings of Noble vs Potts didn't see to add much worthwhile to anyone's side.

Such is life.

So to wrap this up I decided to re-watch my favorite episodes from each season. I just rewatched "The Girl in the Fireplace", and I am pretty confident in the fact that I don't think any other episode had a more
profound emotional impact on me.

That was just absolutely beautiful, and I am so madly in love with Madame de' Pompadour. 

Damn..

Obv that's a good episode, but I just don't hold it in the esteem that others do.

Could be just because I'm so emotionally possessive of 10 that I kind of resent her a little.

For emotional impact, first off anything with Amy and Rory. Like, anything. The amount of emotional investment I have in them is insane. I'm trying right now to think of some greater OTP and I just can't. "If you love me, then trust me, and push." "Could you? If it was me, could you do it?" "To save you? I could do anything." SERIOUSLY.
We could talk for years about Moffatt's genius and glaring shortcomings, but he did one thing right.
[Not to mention that if you go back to watch "favorite eps" from each season, most of them will be eps he wrote, such as "Girl in the Fireplace"]

But, other than Amy/Rory, 10's last episodes-- Water on Mars, and End of Time 1 and 2, hit me in so many ways.
With Water on Mars, the acting plays such a role. Lindsay Duncan as Capt Adelaide Brooke is one of the best one-off performances this show has ever seen. She is sublime and hits my heart over and over like the true revelation that she is. And it might also be the best performance that Tennant ever gave. The way that they play off of each other is incredible. I will never get tired of watching that episode.
As for his two-part Finale Episode, as a Davies fangirl, it was the best Davies send-off ever. The last 20 minutes of that episode, tying up all of his loose threads, giving satisfying endings to everything he created in four seasons. And it didn't have the forced "happy ending" feel that Moffatt has. Because it wasn't "let's have the Best Possible Rainbows and Sunshine" even when the whole POINT of the last 20 minutes was to give everyone a "happy" ending with 10 "going to get my reward" to make sure that everyone he loved was okay. Because, I mean, the send-off to Jack Harkness was just getting him laid by some random guy in a bar But sandwiched in there was 10's visiting the book signing of his human-life love's granddaughter: "Was she happy? In the end?" and omg there goes my feelings. Once you've gone through Mickey and Martha, Sarah Jane, Donna (and how he went back in time to get her a wedding present from her dead father "Have that, on me" OMFG) and Wilfred, Jack, and then you realize that there's still one more person and he pops up on Rose on NEW YEAR'S EVE 2005 "I bet you're gonna have a really great year" I'm a mess.

While I appreciate that Moffatt's gift at writing gives us some amazing one-off "human" stories that are special in the connections he makes us feel (for chrissake, the first time we meet River in "Silence in the Library"), I am more into the long game.
The time I spent with Davies' characters makes the end game for them so much more touching and real to me.

And suddenly I realize, ignore EVERYTHING that I just said.

The most profound emotional impact I ever felt was actually a non-sequential-story one-off random episode in S5.

Vincent and the Doctor.

Like, life-changing emotional impact. That is the most tragically beautiful thing I've ever watched. Art and madness and grief and beauty and loss.
PERFECT. EPISODE.

Rewatch that one, Warty.

I actually vividly remember the second time I saw it, because I was in my kitchen with my best friend who was watching the show for the first time, and we're at the table prepping dinner watching on the laptop, and both of us end up sitting there sobbing our eyes out at the ending.







Seriously, THE MONSTER WAS JUST LONELY AND AFRAID.

And then laying in the field and seeing Starry Night LIKE VAN GOGH.

AND MUSEUM SCENE.

And Amy's heart when she learned that Van Gogh still killed himself, and the Sunflower painting, SERIOUSLY.

And right up in there, DIRECTLY after Rory's first death and erasure from Amy's memory, Van Gogh like "I hear the song of your sadness. You've lost someone." Amy: "I'm not sad." "Then why are you crying" it all ties back to Amy/Rory OTP forever.

All of those episodes mentioned will probably be watched again. I may have overstated the impact of Girl in the Fireplace, but it's mainly because I am so totally in love with Renette. I want to drink some wine, dance, and then discuss art and enlightenment with her.

For as much as Martha was below the Rose curve, she was a part of some magnificent episodes.

vonnegut wrote:

And suddenly I realize, ignore EVERYTHING that I just said.

The most profound emotional impact I ever felt was actually a non-sequential-story one-off random episode in S5.

Vincent and the Doctor.

Like, life-changing emotional impact.  That is the most tragically beautiful thing I've ever watched.  Art and madness and grief and beauty and loss.  
PERFECT.  EPISODE.

Rewatch that one, Warty.

I actually vividly remember the second time I saw it, because I was in my kitchen with my best friend who was watching the show for the first time, and we're at the table prepping dinner watching on the laptop, and both of us end up sitting there sobbing our eyes out at the ending.  







Seriously, THE MONSTER WAS JUST LONELY AND AFRAID.

And then laying in the field and seeing Starry Night LIKE VAN GOGH.

AND MUSEUM SCENE.

And Amy's heart when she learned that Van Gogh still killed himself, and the Sunflower painting, SERIOUSLY.  

An I have told you...I can not rewatch this episode. It's too profound.

But I will share some of what I recall of my thoughts while watching it. The whole "Let's keep Vincent from offing hisself" plan, that's not going to work because it got to one of those "fixed points" that the shows writers pull out of their asses for stuff they don't want changed when in reality, if they can erase the whole fucking Universe before brekkers then killing Hitler is easy-peasy. Still, old college try, wot. Vincent hearing M. Crusty l'Expert blather on about how he was such a great artist because his suffering, blah...blah...I'd have stole a gun and shot myself right there.

Gonna stop right there....tell you about my favorite piece by Van Gogh. Not even sure the title, forgot it, ashamed to say. it's one of his "lesser known works", for no good reason. It's a painting which is divided neatly into two, left and right, by is subject, the outside of a cafe at night. On the left is the cafe wall, brightly lit, a table and chairs. on the right side, darker, are the lights of the city in the distance, the people down the street. What Van Gogh did with the painting was achieve a sharp contrast in field-of-depth between the two halves and the difference in lighting magnifies this contrast so that they eye is unable to move from one side of the painting to the other with the mind needing to adjust for the difference. This is something only a brilliant artist could manage. I am sure that the first people he showed it to saw it and said that it was too distracting. Every great painter in France for over 200 years from Ingres to Manet to Renoir to Degas to Monet to Man Ray did stuff nobody else was doing, Van Gogh was another in that line of geniuses. He was also either clinically depressive of bp-polar, the latter being the more likely (but no definitive diagnosis can be made without direct observation by a qualified professional....If The Doctor and Amy had REALLY wanted to save him they would have grabbed a competent psychiatrist, I am sure UNIT has one or two of those sitting about.) but there's no connection between his artistic genius and his emotional difficulties. He din't paint because he was suffering. He painted because he loved to paint and it was the only thing he did well.

All that stated, while I differ with their interpretation of Van Gogh, I was very moved by the way they presented theirs. So they take Vincent back to his own time, drop him off, pop back to le Musee, and find that he's still dead. Bummer. Here I was much relieved that they hadn't changed the past a whit except for Vincent putting a little note on one piece. I mean...what would Vincent have done if he hadn't killed himself? Kept on in that merde du cheval town until he drank himself to death? Packed up for Marseilles and hawked his paintings on the streets proclaiming he would be world famous in the future?

TBC wrote:

Gonna stop right there....tell you about my favorite piece by Van Gogh. Not even sure the title, forgot it, ashamed to say. it's one of his "lesser known works", for no good reason.  It's a painting which is divided neatly into two, left and right, by is subject, the outside of a cafe at night. On the left is the cafe wall, brightly lit, a table and chairs. on the right side, darker, are the lights of the city in the distance, the people down the street. What Van Gogh did with the painting was achieve a sharp contrast in field-of-depth between the two halves and the difference in lighting magnifies this contrast so that they eye is unable to move from one side of the painting to the other with the mind needing to adjust for the difference. This is something only a brilliant artist could manage. I am sure that the first people he showed it to saw it and said that it was too distracting.

Isn't that the one that is featured in the ep when they first meet him?

Warthawg1 wrote:

For as much as Martha was below the Rose curve, she was a part of some magnificent episodes.

YEP.

Season 3 really is wonderful. Despite the Martha. Who, in the end, I mostly pity and empathize with.

vonnegut wrote:

TBC wrote:

Gonna stop right there....tell you about my favorite piece by Van Gogh. Not even sure the title, forgot it, ashamed to say. it's one of his "lesser known works", for no good reason.  It's a painting which is divided neatly into two, left and right, by is subject, the outside of a cafe at night. On the left is the cafe wall, brightly lit, a table and chairs. on the right side, darker, are the lights of the city in the distance, the people down the street. What Van Gogh did with the painting was achieve a sharp contrast in field-of-depth between the two halves and the difference in lighting magnifies this contrast so that they eye is unable to move from one side of the painting to the other with the mind needing to adjust for the difference. This is something only a brilliant artist could manage. I am sure that the first people he showed it to saw it and said that it was too distracting.

Isn't that the one that is featured in the ep when they first meet him?

4:19 mark. The Doctor and Amy land in the town at night, go looking for Vincent, she opens her little guidebook of Van Gogh paintings as The Doctor says "Orangey light, chairs and tables outside."

My mom has, or had, a print of it. I don't know how long it was on the wall before I actually looked at it.

Yes, that's the moment I was thinking about.

Awesome painting.

Cafe, le soir. That's the title of the piece.