Happy New Year + New Who

[newnumber6]

First, to make it official, happy 2010. I slept through it.

Before I did, though, I watched Aftermath: The World without Us on TV. Seen it before (and another program with the exact same premise), but still enjoyable. Basically looks at what happens to the planet and all the creations of man over the months, years, and centuries if humanity just disappeared one day. "Last Man" senarioists take note, it goes to crap very quickly for you guys. Which got me thinking.

I think it's about time we put Wikipedia on the Moon. Well, not that exactly, but some kind of archive of human knowledge that anybody can access through a simple protocol. Then, as long as you had battery power on a device that can contact it, you can get important information you desire that might help in restarting society. Because let's say there's a massive plague, or zombie apocalypse, or big natural disaster, and all the infrastructure fails, it would help an awful lot if there was a way to get in. And, by making it completely open, you can also help people in restrictive regimes, all they need is a device capable of accessing it and they can get information on health, safety, technology, etc.

A satellite would be good, and probably easier, but assuming a long-term collapse, the satellite might well fall out of orbit eventually. Settling it on the moon, the side which always faces Earth, would mean it would be more likely to be stable and accessible over the long term.

Anyway, enough random musing (I'm sure there are many problems with the idea, but I've only given it a few minutes of thought). Let's talk about Doctor Who.

In short: That didn't suck nearly as much as I expected it to. It was actually almost good, for RTD at least. There were a few big WTF moments (which I'll talk about), but the basic plot hit pretty well satisfying. It doesn't make up for the crappy first part, but at least it makes a nice change from "good first parts followed by crappy resolutions.

The WTFs:
1. Donna was completely and totally wasted. I mean seriously, the Master chases her for a few minutes, her brain starts to burn out, Doctor goes "oh, lol, I put in a defense mechanism that zaps anybody near by and puts her to sleep"... SEVERAL DAYS PASS while none of the Masters apparently bother to find her. She goes from a role in the cliffhanger that promises much, to lying on the street for the whole episode, and turning up at the end. LAME.
2. More magic Sonic Screwdriver Magic. This time, point it one place and it completely disables a whole spaceship.
3. The Diablo Ex Machina of the Doctor-killing-machine at the end. Seriously, it's like somebody made a machine carefully designed to kick you in the nuts.
4. All those Masters working together and taking ORDERS from each other? A little unbelievable.
5. Hell of a lame design for a planet healing device. You kill the template (or activate a technobablic device), and everybody snaps back into the condition they were in?
6. The worst of the worst stupid plotting. Doctor's got a gun. Decides whether or not to shoot the Master or the Time Lord. TIME LORD'S GOT A MAGIC GAUNTLET THAT CAN DISSOLVE TIME LORDS. HE JUST STANDS AROUND WAITING FOR THE DOCTOR TO MAKE HIS DECISION. ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING WHO HE'S SUPPOSED TO BE, THIS IS NOT A MARK OF A GENIUS.

I think there were a few other points where I was thinking, "Okay, now you're just pulling plot points out of your @$$", but those were the biggest, and, all told, that's not bad for a RTD episode. #1 and #6 are the only ones that really, really pissed me off.


The Good: Some really nice Master scenes... I particularly loved the one where the Doctor talks about just travelling the universe together, instead of trying to rule it. Also a couple of the scenes with Wilf were very good, particularly on the Spaceship.

I leave the final scene out of it, because although I like the Doctor's whining about how he had to give up his life while knowing it was his own choice and he was having to do it, the stupidity of the plot device overrode it.

As said before, the basic plot was decent, and although I have trouble with the Master's inconsistent levels of ability (he controls the whole world yet at times he seems incompetent, and at other like they're all in synch), it was still a remarkable amount of fun with a silly premise.

I really like how they worked Rose in among his goodbyes. Not a surprise, but still good. Even though Rose isn't one of my favorite companions, she's probably my favorite of the goodbye scenes.


Speculations on issues of Who continuity, and unresolved issues:
Time Lords disappeared (along with, I think, the Master), but even more ambiguously than the Daleks do. I could see some kind of "snapping back, like an elastic, not back to its original point but far in the other direction" explanation for them remaining alive.

The Master, likewise, has two different outs. He could come back with the Time Lords, (and thus get a TARDIS and be a REAL Master), or you could posit a group of The Master Race deciding "I don't want to take orders, I'm looking out for myself" and spending those few days building some sort of time travel device that let them escape when everybody else turned back to normal. If Rose and her alternate world could built such a device in a year, a group of Masters should be able to build a substitute TARDIS in an afternoon.

I'm still not fond of the Master having been "crazy since a kid" (CRAZY IS NOT A GOOD CHARACTER MOTIVATION), but I've reached a personal canon that I can live with: That, during the course of the Time War, the history of Gallifrey itself has been subtly shifted. That is, the Classic Master we saw in the old series was the original one, with no drums, but in the course of the war, this self-fulfilling paradox got inserted into canon, and made him retroactively insane from childhood. So the drums weren't actual insanity, they just made it more visible to people.

So, they never did address the white Time Lady, so I'm guessing that's being left for a future story. But, although I initially thought she might be Romana, when she said "someone who was lost a long time ago" I suddenly had a feeling that RTD wanted to bring it all back to the very beginning, and she was the Doctor's Granddaughter Susan, having been recalled during the Time War. Would have been nice to have some closure on that, though.

I was wrong on Dalton being the Valeyard... instead he's... Rassilon? Okay, I could see the Time War resurrecting him, but it felt a little to me like RTD deciding to put his own stamp on classic Who, marking his territory on it, and, well, we know how animals tend to mark their territory on something. Rassilion wasn't an all noble figure, but I think it would have been better to leave him out of this episode and just have him be some other Time Lord (or the Valeyard).


The ending, and what we saw of the new Doctor: (biggest spoilers)
Okay, it was a little self-indulgent. The Doctor visiting each of his companions in turn. But you know, I think he has a right to a little self-indulgence here.

Although the Tenth Doctor gets to visit all his (major) companions in an overly long ending that reminded me of the end of Lord of the Rings (lets show everybody!), he dies alone, which is appropriate for the lonely emo Doctor he was.

Matt Smith... well, I always say you can't judge a Doctor by his immediate post-regeneration, but I'm liking him so far, except, so far, he seems a little TOO Ten still. I'm hoping his hyperness will calm down a little and he'll grow into his own personality.


Edit: Preview of Eleven's first season here.
But I give it a thumbs up, all in all. Maybe because the first part had so badly lowered my expectations, but still.

Comments

[st-aurafina.livejournal.com]

Seriously, I was waiting for the Masters to turn and eat each other. All that co-operation and yessir, nossir stuff was highly unbelievable. And you can't just drop the name of Rassilon with no explanation. That's just plain lazy. But I did like all the good-byes.