caz963 | Voicing an Unpopular Opinion

You can tell I’ve either got time on my hands or that I’m procrastinating when I come up with something like this.

Anyway.

A couple of days ago

topaz_eyes posted an excellent bit of meta about the Rueful Fate of Donna Noble in Journey’s End - if you’ve not read it, I highly recommend it – as part of an Unpopular Fandom Opinions meme. I’m not doing the meme, but it started me thinking, and I’ve realized that I have some opinions when it comes to DW that appear not to be shared by most of fandom.

For example, I don’t hate what is colloquially known as Tinkerbell!Doctor in Last of the Time Lords. It was cheesy, yes, but I didn’t (and still don’t) care – I liked it. Girl in the Fireplace and Blink aren’t among my favourite episodes of nu-Who EVAH! I don’t hate River Song (even though she was bloody annoying to start with!) and I don’t like Rose very much. That last one will come as a huge shock, I know.

But the Unpopular Fandom Opinion I’m going to voice isn’t to do with any of those. (And it's also nowhere near as good or as insightful as the bit of meta I've linked to above).

It’s this. I LIKE VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED

Yes. You read that right. I’ve never made a secret of that fact, but it was on telly today and once my brain had regained normal function (i.e, after it had finished!) I started thinking that it was time to show the episode some love. After all, it’s still the Christmas episode with the highest viewing figures, so it must’ve done something right (as well as employ an antipodean midget!)

I mean – what’s not to love? To get the bleedin’ obvious out of the way – and in case you hadn’t noticed, David Tennant spends 99% of the episode running around in a nicely fitting tux and looking quite possibly the most gorgeous he’s ever looked on DW.

Further evidence of that – should you require more than my word for it, is in the picspam I did a while back.

But that’s not going to form the basis of my argument. Such as it is.

Voyage of the Damned is The Posiedon Adventure in space. For anyone unfamiliar with that movie -

The plot centers on the fictional ocean liner SS Poseidon, an aged luxury liner from the golden age of travel, on its final voyage from New York City to Athens before being sent to the scrapyard. On New Year's Day, it is overturned by a tsunami caused by an underwater earthquake. Passengers and crew are trapped inside and a rebellious preacher attempts to lead a small group of survivors to safety.
from Wikipedia

Of course, the survivors are a bunch of “misfits” – that’s like an unwritten rule of disaster movies, isn’t it? And of course, they don’t all survive. In fact, the overall body-count is pretty high in this one. All the passengers and crew are killed apart from the Doctor, Mr Copper, Ritson and Allons-y-Alonzo. So it could be seen as being a bit depressing for something you’d watch with the family on Christmas Day. But somehow, it doesn’t feel like that. Perhaps it’s because we’re so familiar with the genre – after all, people my age are used to looking forward to watching the “Big Christmas Day Movie” in the days before we had DVDs and Videos and Sky Plus and movies on demand – and it was usually a Bond film, or something along the lines of The Toweing Inferno! – so the way I see it, Rusty was simply carrying on a childhood tradition! (I’m the same age as he is, so it makes perfect sense to me.)

But watching VotD again today, I was really at a loss to see why it’s attracted so much scorn and derision. Are there cheesy moments? Absolutely. But there are plenty of other GOOD things to balance those out and the hommage to various movie genres as well as to the original film and disaster movies in general are very well done; and the special effects and set design are fabulous.

The good –

Geoffrey Palmer. Yes, ol’ hand-bag cheeks himself was terrific as the captain. His speech as he told Frame what he was doing and why was pitch perfect and what was even better was that we were given a context for his actions. I’m not saying that makes what he did right, but as in all of Rusty’s Who, there’s a difficult and irreconcilable conflict in his motives and we got to see it.
Mr Copper and his misunderstanding and misinformation about Earth culture and traditions. His speeches about the war with Turkey, and then later about the barbarism of Christmas are utterly inspired.

I am Mr Copper, the ship's historian, and I will be taking you to Old London Town in the country of Yookay. Ruled over by Good King Wenceslas. Now, Human Beings worship the great God, Santa. A creature with fearsome claws. And his wife, Mary. Every Christmas Eve, the people of Yookay go to war, with the country of Turkey.
They then eat the Turkey-people, for Christmas dinner. Like savages.
WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILF!!!!!!!!!!!
It’s FUNNY!
Christmas is a time of peace and thanksgiving and, oh what am I on about? My Christmases are always like this!

See, I like little in-show-self-referency things like that.
And yes, the thing with Her Maj in curlers and fluffy slippers is ridiculous – but it makes me laugh my head off.
THIS:

But if you could choose, Doctor. If you could decide who lives and who dies. That would make you a monster.
The bunch of misfit survivors. Like I said, it’s an unwritten rule for this sort of plot – but I have to admire – again – the swift brush-strokes that are used to tell us who these people are. Of course, they’re not fully fleshed out characters – they couldn’t be, given that there’s only an hour to tell this story, but it’s enough to make us feel sorry when Foon and her old man pop their clogs, cheer when Mr Copper realises he’s a millionaire and to want to smack Ritson for being such a selfish git.
David Tennant. Yeah, yeah, I know - but before you roll your eyes and remind me of how shallow I am, I'm not just talking about the pretty. I'm talking about the fact that he carries the whole thing with absolute confidence and conviction. He never gives less than 110% (and when you consider the circumstances under which he was working at the time of filming, it's even more incredible) he makes me want to cheer at the cheesy lines (see below), makes me laugh with one-liners about talking conkers and his little-boy grin and makes me sniffle when the Doctor loses yet another person who meant something to him. Ten's a big, damn bally hero in this one, and I love it.

Okay, the not so great…

The cheese.

I'm the Doctor. I'm a Time Lord. I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. I'm nine hundred and three years old, and I'm the man who's going to save your lives and all six billion people on the planet below. Got a problem with that?

Yes – its gorgonzola city. But it’s another of those times when I have to express my unbridled admiration for the fact that David managed to deliver some truly dreadful line with such complete and utter conviction that he made me believe them. almost
The Slow-Mo walk… see “the cheese” – above.

But - is that really any more cheesy than a ride around the skies in a one space-shark open sleigh?!
The Kylie

Of course she was cast to boost the ratings – she’s a huge star. A pretty, blonde, singer/actress whose character was really not much more than a plot device and who… hang on a minute. Why does that sound familiar?

It amuses me no end that she had to stand on a box to snog Ten though, and that David has to almost bend in half to look her in the eye!
The Ascension

Um. Yeah. I can’t really say all that much about this other than to agree that it’s daft and looks it. I just look at the shot before they take off -

- and spend some time thinking about that until they get to the bridge!

I'm sure I've missed something - so feel free to jog my memory, good or bad.

Okay, so there you have it - my Unpopular Fandom Opinion. I'm not expecting to change your opinion; I'm just sharing mine.