Doctor Who - A Christmas Carol
Dec. 27th, 2010 12:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caz963I've only been able to watch this once so far, so my thoughts aren't very organised, but here goes anyway.
My initial reactions are that I enjoyed it and that Matt-as-Eleven was charming, endearing and completely bonkers. After it had finished though, I found myself wondering whether, if it hadn't been for Matt Smith, the whole thing would have fallen rather flat.
My favourite bit was the little twist at the end, where it turns out that the Doctor is showing the young Kazran his future when of course we're expecting him to whisk off the older Karzan to show him the error of his ways.
Michael Gambon was great, Katherine Jenkins did well in a first acting role, it was funny and the whole thing looked fabulous.
But a few hours later I found it hard to remember a lot about what actually went on.
Other random thoughts :-
The insistance that time can be rewritten is really starting to bother me. Okay, so the Doctor can't be everywhere at once, but if that's true, then given there's nobody out there to stop him, he could zip around undoing anything he doesn't like. That's something he finally realised as Ten - and which ultimately led to his "death". So - I'm confused. In principle, a show in which the central character is a time traveller has to have some sort of self-imposed rules, otherwise, there's no drama. If anything bad can be undone, there's really no point in watching, is there? And RTD was very clear about what that sort of power could do to someone - If you could decide who lives or dies... it would make you a monster. So logically, if time can be rewritten, then the Doctor can go back to fix Donna, or stop the metacrisis happening in the first place... or find another way to end the Time War, or - well, the list is endless.
I was also astonished when old Kazran hugged his younger self. I remember thinking wtf? when Amy touched Amelia at the end of the last series, but this was more than just a touch. What happened to... can't remember the name it was given - whatever it was that Nine told Rose in Father's Day when she almost touched her baby self? I thought that contact between the same person at different stages in their lives would destroy the planet or something. Has that been rewritten as well?
And here's my biggest problem - and it's something that's just this minute occurred to me.
I didn't really care all that much about any of the characters involved. Of course, I wanted the Doctor to save the day, but other than that, I wasn't particularly invested in any of 'em.
And that makes me sound really curmudgeonly - and I don't mean to be. As I said, I did enjoy it and I'll be watching it again - maybe it'll grow on me.
It's just that I'm not sure that what I watched was Doctor Who - but then I suppose DW is whatever the bloke running the show says it is and that 'twas ever thus.
Is it me, or was the "coming soon" trailer a bit miserly this time round? I don't know how far into shooting they are because of the split series; normally at Christmas, they've got about three or four episodes to go, but perhaps it's different this year.
My initial reactions are that I enjoyed it and that Matt-as-Eleven was charming, endearing and completely bonkers. After it had finished though, I found myself wondering whether, if it hadn't been for Matt Smith, the whole thing would have fallen rather flat.
My favourite bit was the little twist at the end, where it turns out that the Doctor is showing the young Kazran his future when of course we're expecting him to whisk off the older Karzan to show him the error of his ways.
Michael Gambon was great, Katherine Jenkins did well in a first acting role, it was funny and the whole thing looked fabulous.
But a few hours later I found it hard to remember a lot about what actually went on.
Other random thoughts :-
- Not much Amy. :-)
- Amy and Rory dressing up. ;-)
- "Is that a ... threat-y... thing?" Hee!
- The psychic paper fails when the Doctor tries a lie that's waaaay too big. Like trying to pass himself off as a responsible adult.
- Does Moff have a fish-fetish? Fish custard, StarWhales and now Space Sharks?
- Did somebody actually die? (albeit off-screen)
- I think that the FX team were effecting a sort of hommage to the latest Star Trek movie with all the lens flare. Also - was it my imagination, or did the bridge of that ship have a look of the Enterprise about it? Also - O Hai Geordi!
- It's not just Rusty who appears to like the idea of the Doctor getting married to famous women from history!
The insistance that time can be rewritten is really starting to bother me. Okay, so the Doctor can't be everywhere at once, but if that's true, then given there's nobody out there to stop him, he could zip around undoing anything he doesn't like. That's something he finally realised as Ten - and which ultimately led to his "death". So - I'm confused. In principle, a show in which the central character is a time traveller has to have some sort of self-imposed rules, otherwise, there's no drama. If anything bad can be undone, there's really no point in watching, is there? And RTD was very clear about what that sort of power could do to someone - If you could decide who lives or dies... it would make you a monster. So logically, if time can be rewritten, then the Doctor can go back to fix Donna, or stop the metacrisis happening in the first place... or find another way to end the Time War, or - well, the list is endless.
I was also astonished when old Kazran hugged his younger self. I remember thinking wtf? when Amy touched Amelia at the end of the last series, but this was more than just a touch. What happened to... can't remember the name it was given - whatever it was that Nine told Rose in Father's Day when she almost touched her baby self? I thought that contact between the same person at different stages in their lives would destroy the planet or something. Has that been rewritten as well?
And here's my biggest problem - and it's something that's just this minute occurred to me.
I didn't really care all that much about any of the characters involved. Of course, I wanted the Doctor to save the day, but other than that, I wasn't particularly invested in any of 'em.
And that makes me sound really curmudgeonly - and I don't mean to be. As I said, I did enjoy it and I'll be watching it again - maybe it'll grow on me.
It's just that I'm not sure that what I watched was Doctor Who - but then I suppose DW is whatever the bloke running the show says it is and that 'twas ever thus.
Is it me, or was the "coming soon" trailer a bit miserly this time round? I don't know how far into shooting they are because of the split series; normally at Christmas, they've got about three or four episodes to go, but perhaps it's different this year.
