Doctor Who 4x10 - Midnight
Jun. 17th, 2008 12:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficDoctor Who is a humanistic show, so the premise could almost be described as “ordinary people are sufficient to any challenge.” However, the Doctor is the Hero, so it frequently becomes “ordinary people are fallen, pathetic creatures who need a supernatural being to inspire/redeem them”. It’s a juxtaposition that keeps getting noted and it’s hard not to see that here, where the basic premise of the show gets overridden.
In its own way, it’s as surprising as an episode of Star Trek where they don’t seek out new life and new civilizations, or an episode of BtVS with no freak of the week. In DW, it calls back to Planet of the Odd with its cast of extras who were completely unredeemed by the Doctor’s presence (there, it was mollified by having the Ood thank the Doctor for… uh… feeling sorry for them). It’s still the Doctor and his Companion, traveling in the TARDIS to weird places and meeting scary aliens, but the entire concept is stripped down to its bare essentials and reworked for a much smaller, more intimate story. No Donna, no TARDIS, no technobabble beyond “extonic” (which the audience quickly grasps as “bad motherfucker radiation”). Not even a monster or scary make-up. In this context, even the obvious modernity of the future humans is forgivable (but then, isn’t it always?). Middle-class couple, rebellious son, loveable professor and loyal assistant are all meant to be universal.
I’ve heard a lot of comparisons for this episode, but very few pointing out that it’s basically “The Monsters Are Due In Mapleberry Street” in space. Not that I mind, as adding “in space” makes any story new and the mimicry is a creepy enough twist to breathe new life into the story (even if it is an obvious swap right for “lights and electricity,” right down to eventually being used as an accusatory device).
The problem with this kind of story is that just having the Doctor here interjects a Hero into the proceedings and an exercise in paranoia works best when the hero might turn out to be one of the monsters himself (there’s probably a great story in “the Doctor” really being some kind of changeling manipulating things while the real Doctor is off in the 9th century. That’d make a hell of a Martha/UNIT ep, huh?). As is, the Doctor’s presence and the obvious evil of Sky once the alien “releases” her (could she give more of a sinister line read? I thought she was supposed to sound like the Doctor) serve to distance us from the characters, making us go “How can you be so stupid!?” instead of “Oh my God, that’s the exact same thing I might do in this situation.” And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from sci-fi, it’s to stay calm in a crisis, stick close to the guy/gal who seems to know what they’re doing (especially if he/she frequently bickers with an attractive member of the opposite sex), and always know where the fire extinguisher and flare gun is. And don’t get me started on the “like an immigrant!” clunker. Apparently in the future we’ve conquered homophobia and racism, but we still hate the Irish.
You could read something into a lesbian ending up being possessed and abuse being “heaped” on the black characters, but that’s a bit of an exercise in futility. It really must be compared to the nadir of feminist thought reached in Forest of the Dead, and on that account it isn’t bad at all. You could just as easily say that RTD is being politically correct by having two black women be the most heroic of the passengers. And since RTD is a gay man, he obviously hates hetero women and therefore makes Val Cane the most disgusting of the passengers. Or maybe he just hates professors. The gay agenda is well-known for its feud against professors. Them and their fucking tenures…
In its own way, it’s as surprising as an episode of Star Trek where they don’t seek out new life and new civilizations, or an episode of BtVS with no freak of the week. In DW, it calls back to Planet of the Odd with its cast of extras who were completely unredeemed by the Doctor’s presence (there, it was mollified by having the Ood thank the Doctor for… uh… feeling sorry for them). It’s still the Doctor and his Companion, traveling in the TARDIS to weird places and meeting scary aliens, but the entire concept is stripped down to its bare essentials and reworked for a much smaller, more intimate story. No Donna, no TARDIS, no technobabble beyond “extonic” (which the audience quickly grasps as “bad motherfucker radiation”). Not even a monster or scary make-up. In this context, even the obvious modernity of the future humans is forgivable (but then, isn’t it always?). Middle-class couple, rebellious son, loveable professor and loyal assistant are all meant to be universal.
I’ve heard a lot of comparisons for this episode, but very few pointing out that it’s basically “The Monsters Are Due In Mapleberry Street” in space. Not that I mind, as adding “in space” makes any story new and the mimicry is a creepy enough twist to breathe new life into the story (even if it is an obvious swap right for “lights and electricity,” right down to eventually being used as an accusatory device).
The problem with this kind of story is that just having the Doctor here interjects a Hero into the proceedings and an exercise in paranoia works best when the hero might turn out to be one of the monsters himself (there’s probably a great story in “the Doctor” really being some kind of changeling manipulating things while the real Doctor is off in the 9th century. That’d make a hell of a Martha/UNIT ep, huh?). As is, the Doctor’s presence and the obvious evil of Sky once the alien “releases” her (could she give more of a sinister line read? I thought she was supposed to sound like the Doctor) serve to distance us from the characters, making us go “How can you be so stupid!?” instead of “Oh my God, that’s the exact same thing I might do in this situation.” And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from sci-fi, it’s to stay calm in a crisis, stick close to the guy/gal who seems to know what they’re doing (especially if he/she frequently bickers with an attractive member of the opposite sex), and always know where the fire extinguisher and flare gun is. And don’t get me started on the “like an immigrant!” clunker. Apparently in the future we’ve conquered homophobia and racism, but we still hate the Irish.
You could read something into a lesbian ending up being possessed and abuse being “heaped” on the black characters, but that’s a bit of an exercise in futility. It really must be compared to the nadir of feminist thought reached in Forest of the Dead, and on that account it isn’t bad at all. You could just as easily say that RTD is being politically correct by having two black women be the most heroic of the passengers. And since RTD is a gay man, he obviously hates hetero women and therefore makes Val Cane the most disgusting of the passengers. Or maybe he just hates professors. The gay agenda is well-known for its feud against professors. Them and their fucking tenures…
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-17 05:55 pm (UTC)maybe its "and we hate the Irish again." it seems to be an on-again off-again thing, historically.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-17 05:58 pm (UTC)I wasn't very happy about the attitude the passengers had towards cleverness either, the Doctor is rounded on because he actually had some idea of how to handle the situation and they felt threatened (he might not have been helping matters much himself but the point still stands), then Dee Dee gets shouted down by the Professor when she starts thinking about the whole thing sanely (probably because she was undermining him and it was bruising his ego). Maybe I'm reading too much into it because I've been on the receiving end of that attitude, but those parts made me quietly seethe.
there’s probably a great story in “the Doctor” really being some kind of changeling manipulating things while the real Doctor is off in the 9th century. That’d make a hell of a Martha/UNIT ep, huh?
Totally. It's also the reason I'm hoping my theory about the Doctor getting cloned in the finale is true.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-17 07:17 pm (UTC)Actually, in a room full of panicked domestic primates, the calm voice of "I know what I'm doing, I'm in control" usually is obeyed. Especially if it's reinforcing whatever fear panicked the apes in the first place.
And people did see it. They were just, as you pointed out, shouted down and bullied into going along with the herd.
Psychologically, the episode was a fantastic look at a group of random strangers in a crisis.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-17 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-18 12:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-18 04:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-18 08:40 am (UTC)And don’t get me started on the “like an immigrant!” clunker. Apparently in the future we’ve conquered homophobia and racism, but we still hate the Irish.
Okay, I just stumbled across yer journal because it's late and I'm bored and I accidentally clicked the "random journal" link on my LJ Header Bar instead of "friends", but I read that line and immediately thought, "Okay, yah, that really is the best summery/review of this ep that I have read yet." You really just hit the nail on the head there. Not sure who you are yet (and as you don't know who I am either, that's only fair), but right there, I think you hooked me into checking back on your journal when I'm more awake if you don't mind.
Truly, you just perfectly summed up my every thought on this ep that I had not yet been able to put into my own words. Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-18 09:25 am (UTC)