Doctor Who 5x07 Review
Jun. 11th, 2010 10:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iariaAmy’s Choice
I really enjoyed this episode. In fact it’s probably one of my favourites of season five. The Eleventh Hour is still my favourite but this one is right up there with The Time of Angels as far as enjoying it.
• I really do love this Doctor. He amuses me so much and at the same time he’s got this core of angst and is capable of such compassion and such rage – which is pretty much just the Doctor, isn’t it?
Various moments I liked:
- “Stop talking to me when I’m cross.” (both funny and good advice! If you leave someone in a bad mood alone there’s less a chance of a fight happening until they work through it)
- “Let’s go poke it with a stick.” (heh, that’s like the Doctor’s motto)
- “You hold him down, I’ll cut it off?” (because hee, and I love Amy’s laughter and Rory’s reaction)
- the Doctor saving random people, including a dog, in the village dream while on his way to Amy and Rory’s house
- and just generally the Doctor being the Doctor.
• “There’s only one person in the universe who hates me as much as you do.” – Doctor. I was wracking my brain trying to think who it could be but all I could come up with was the Master, and I just didn’t buy them bringing him back so soon. So then I was all ready to be irritated with Moffett for creating this new character that the Doctor knew, and who was his nemesis, but who we’d never heard of... and then we find out that the Dream Lord is the Doctor and it works so well! Of course it would be the Doctor.
• “Friends? Is that the right word for the people you acquire? Friends are people you stay in touch with. Your friends never see you again once they’ve grow up. The old man prefers the company of the young, does he not?” – Dream Lord. Hmm, many things here: once again with the reference to the Doctor as Peter Pan, which is interesting. Referencing how the Doctor keeps travelling with the young, though to him everyone is young, because as is stated he is an old man. He doesn’t look it, and now less than ever, but he really is. Then there’s the fact that it’s himself calling him out – on whether his Companions truly are his friends considering how often he just leaves them and never sees them again.
It brings back to mind his line to Amy and Rory at the beginning – “You know me, I don’t just abandon people when they leave the TARDIS.” – which left me sputtering until his acknowledgement that he showed up by accident. Which in itself is interesting because I don’t feel at this point that Amy does realise that he does just leave past Companions since they haven’t yet had that talk/encounter. So her ‘it was a mistake’ doesn’t feel knowing like it would be if Martha or Sarah Jane said it but ... more like she was reacting to how he said it, and was babbling on? This Amy is still so innocent to who he is. Which actually leads to another interesting point – this isn’t the first time we’ve had the Doctor telling Amy something about himself that we know is patently untrue (I think of 2x02 but there may have been another moment). Added to the above I wonder if the Doctor wants to believe himself different, or to actual change how he interacts with his Companions in the end?
• “Is that who you think you are? The one he trusts. ... The only girl in the universe to who the Doctor tells everything?” – Dream Lord. I can’t help myself – I thought of Rose, and then Donna. I don’t think though that there is one person that the Doctor has/would confide everything in though I do think there have been many he has trusted. Except then he brings up whether Amy knows the Doctor’s name, and we know that River knows the Doctor’s name, so is this actually foreshadowing for her? He trusts her (calling back to him asking her if he could in their last meeting, and her saying he did to Ten, I believe) but is she the ‘one girl’ that he’ll tell everything?
• “I chose my friends with great care.” – Doctor. I go aww but also is he ever going to call them his Companions? Has any Doctor? I can’t remember.
• I liked Amy though the scene in the nursery with the Doctor was really harsh. “Then what is the point of you.” – ouch. Though her “You save everyone. That’s what you do.” was also unintentionally painful too. She tells the Dream Lord that “He doesn’t have to (apologise)” but he does still have to be the Doctor. Anyway, I loved her referring to the Doctor as ‘a bow tie wearing idiot’ and her making ponchos for the three of them (the bit about them dying looking like a Peruvian folk band made me smile). I liked her getting the Doctor with a fake labour because he was all down on her village life though I was sure her calling wolf on it so much was going to be an actual plot point later in the episode.
• I found the Doctor calling the first glimpse at the village life ‘a nightmare’ interesting. Because of how boring it was? Because Amy was no longer his Companion, he was alone and once again back to only seeing previous Companion’s by accident? A combination?
• Does changing the interior of the TARDIS really change how it works? I mean the Doctor’s “Red flashing lights. I bet they mean something.” made me laugh but it was once again the Doctor not knowing how this TARDIS works. Amy asking for the manual made me blink but since the Doctor responds that he threw it in a super nova that means there was a manual. Huh. I did love that it was because he disagreed with it – oh, Doctor. Of course he did.
• I love the size of this TARDIS – it’s so huge and open feeling and gorgeous (for the most part). I loved the look of it all covered in frost – very pretty.
• So, okay, Amy chooses Rory – this still does not deal with the issue I care most about! At the end of Flesh and Stone she came onto the Doctor, heavily, and he figured out that there was something very wrong with the universe and it was centred on Amy. The episode ended on this very ominous note. But we’ve now had two further episodes and not only have neither of them dealt with it but it hasn’t even been mentioned! It’s really very irritating.
I really enjoyed this episode. In fact it’s probably one of my favourites of season five. The Eleventh Hour is still my favourite but this one is right up there with The Time of Angels as far as enjoying it.
• I really do love this Doctor. He amuses me so much and at the same time he’s got this core of angst and is capable of such compassion and such rage – which is pretty much just the Doctor, isn’t it?
Various moments I liked:
- “Stop talking to me when I’m cross.” (both funny and good advice! If you leave someone in a bad mood alone there’s less a chance of a fight happening until they work through it)
- “Let’s go poke it with a stick.” (heh, that’s like the Doctor’s motto)
- “You hold him down, I’ll cut it off?” (because hee, and I love Amy’s laughter and Rory’s reaction)
- the Doctor saving random people, including a dog, in the village dream while on his way to Amy and Rory’s house
- and just generally the Doctor being the Doctor.
• “There’s only one person in the universe who hates me as much as you do.” – Doctor. I was wracking my brain trying to think who it could be but all I could come up with was the Master, and I just didn’t buy them bringing him back so soon. So then I was all ready to be irritated with Moffett for creating this new character that the Doctor knew, and who was his nemesis, but who we’d never heard of... and then we find out that the Dream Lord is the Doctor and it works so well! Of course it would be the Doctor.
• “Friends? Is that the right word for the people you acquire? Friends are people you stay in touch with. Your friends never see you again once they’ve grow up. The old man prefers the company of the young, does he not?” – Dream Lord. Hmm, many things here: once again with the reference to the Doctor as Peter Pan, which is interesting. Referencing how the Doctor keeps travelling with the young, though to him everyone is young, because as is stated he is an old man. He doesn’t look it, and now less than ever, but he really is. Then there’s the fact that it’s himself calling him out – on whether his Companions truly are his friends considering how often he just leaves them and never sees them again.
It brings back to mind his line to Amy and Rory at the beginning – “You know me, I don’t just abandon people when they leave the TARDIS.” – which left me sputtering until his acknowledgement that he showed up by accident. Which in itself is interesting because I don’t feel at this point that Amy does realise that he does just leave past Companions since they haven’t yet had that talk/encounter. So her ‘it was a mistake’ doesn’t feel knowing like it would be if Martha or Sarah Jane said it but ... more like she was reacting to how he said it, and was babbling on? This Amy is still so innocent to who he is. Which actually leads to another interesting point – this isn’t the first time we’ve had the Doctor telling Amy something about himself that we know is patently untrue (I think of 2x02 but there may have been another moment). Added to the above I wonder if the Doctor wants to believe himself different, or to actual change how he interacts with his Companions in the end?
• “Is that who you think you are? The one he trusts. ... The only girl in the universe to who the Doctor tells everything?” – Dream Lord. I can’t help myself – I thought of Rose, and then Donna. I don’t think though that there is one person that the Doctor has/would confide everything in though I do think there have been many he has trusted. Except then he brings up whether Amy knows the Doctor’s name, and we know that River knows the Doctor’s name, so is this actually foreshadowing for her? He trusts her (calling back to him asking her if he could in their last meeting, and her saying he did to Ten, I believe) but is she the ‘one girl’ that he’ll tell everything?
• “I chose my friends with great care.” – Doctor. I go aww but also is he ever going to call them his Companions? Has any Doctor? I can’t remember.
• I liked Amy though the scene in the nursery with the Doctor was really harsh. “Then what is the point of you.” – ouch. Though her “You save everyone. That’s what you do.” was also unintentionally painful too. She tells the Dream Lord that “He doesn’t have to (apologise)” but he does still have to be the Doctor. Anyway, I loved her referring to the Doctor as ‘a bow tie wearing idiot’ and her making ponchos for the three of them (the bit about them dying looking like a Peruvian folk band made me smile). I liked her getting the Doctor with a fake labour because he was all down on her village life though I was sure her calling wolf on it so much was going to be an actual plot point later in the episode.
• I found the Doctor calling the first glimpse at the village life ‘a nightmare’ interesting. Because of how boring it was? Because Amy was no longer his Companion, he was alone and once again back to only seeing previous Companion’s by accident? A combination?
• Does changing the interior of the TARDIS really change how it works? I mean the Doctor’s “Red flashing lights. I bet they mean something.” made me laugh but it was once again the Doctor not knowing how this TARDIS works. Amy asking for the manual made me blink but since the Doctor responds that he threw it in a super nova that means there was a manual. Huh. I did love that it was because he disagreed with it – oh, Doctor. Of course he did.
• I love the size of this TARDIS – it’s so huge and open feeling and gorgeous (for the most part). I loved the look of it all covered in frost – very pretty.
• So, okay, Amy chooses Rory – this still does not deal with the issue I care most about! At the end of Flesh and Stone she came onto the Doctor, heavily, and he figured out that there was something very wrong with the universe and it was centred on Amy. The episode ended on this very ominous note. But we’ve now had two further episodes and not only have neither of them dealt with it but it hasn’t even been mentioned! It’s really very irritating.
