Pieces of Life: A New Year, A New Doctor! The End of Time Review
Happy Monday loves and most important Happy New Year!
I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday! Can you believe it’s all quite over now? Christmas flew by and now the New Year is upon us. Fun times.
I hope everyone had a really Happy New Year and is looking forward to new beginnings.
On a note of new beginnings….a New Year brings a New Doctor.
Jump (only if you happen to be a Who-fan).
Remember kids it’s only just a bit of wibley wobley, timey wimey stuff but lord knows a presence in my life since I was a child so it’s all quite exciting to take the road again.
Ahhhh I simply can’t let The End of Time go by without mentioning my thoughts on it. I had the pleasure of finally watching Water of Mars and End of Time Part 1 on New Year’s Eve as I had a bit of a Who-themed party with my fellow geeky friends to watch. Good times. I watched the conclusion to The End of Time on Saturday night with my best friend and fellow Who-nerd, Martin, on Saturday night. I can’t think of a single person I’d have rather been with to watch it, he just gets it.
Plenty of sobbing for me all around BUT not nearly as much sobbing then there was in past episodes. I teared up quite a fair bit but I honestly didn’t cry as much as I did in other episodes.� It was bitter sweet and not quite what I wanted with way too many elements introduced.� Perhaps time flew by a little too quickly, perhaps our 10th didn’t go out with a big a bang as I’d have liked, perhaps things just didn’t end as epically as one would have hoped…whatever it was I was left feeling a tad empty afterward. I haven’t reached the heights of rage as some fandom have but I am a tad on the angry side and left to thinking how much better it all could have been. Perhaps I built my hopes around Journey’s End and Stolen Earth, now lord knows that was an interesting regeneration if ever I did see one but also the sense of family, the love, something was in the air in those episodes which was lacking in The End of Time.� And in the end he was quite by himself when it was time and I couldn’t help but feel terribly sad about that.
I’m sad to see that when the 10th finally did realize it was his time to go he didn’t display bravery but anger. Anger directed at an old man who simply admired him, loved him even (how brilliant was Bernard Cribbins as the Doctor’s oldest companion? Huffing and puffing, running after a 900 plus year old Time Lord and helping to save the world! The irony of two “old” men working together was not lost on this Muse!). They portrayed our powerful Doctor as a petulant child having a bit of a tantrum because it was time to save someone. Perhaps this stems from the fact that he just saved the lives of near 6 billion people, survived, and now he had to give his own brilliant life to save the life of a single old man who in all terms would rightfully pass in a few years anyway. I couldn’t help but shake my head and think Time Lord Victorious rears it’s ugly head in some ways when the 10th goes on a rant about saving the life of one old man. One wonders if in later years the 10th lost his aura of carefree child-like innocence to that other man, that more arrogant devil may care man who changes whatever he wants, whenever he wants, the Time Lord Victorious.
In that we also should remember he started out life as a very old man and with each regeneration he became younger and younger. One has to ask one self is this the clever writing of our Doctor or a mere coincidence. With each regeneration he becomes younger and younger in appearance but older and older in mind and heart. Now he comes full circle in some sense and enters his twenties (only in appearance of course because he is ever, always, the source of all that is ancient and old not only in age but in what his eyes have seen, the journeys he has taken, etc…) and you can hope that his writer will relieve some of his burden and allow him to remember to “have fun”.
So indeed in many ways the 10th left us, not wanting to go really, kicking and screaming all the way. I could get into radiation, we’ve been through radiation via another regeneration. I mean after all that the Doctor has been through…radiation was the way he’d go out? It’s such a rerun, can you say Metebelis. Hell, I thank the baby jebus daily for radiation without it we’d never have the 4th, my personal favorite, my doctor so to speak. We could have more of a bigger bang now couldn’t we? He free falls from a high speed traveling spacecraft, lands on concrete, is perfectly fine but proceeds to “die” because of radiation? Bloody hell he’s even beat poison in one episode! But so be it….as I recall my Doctor fell off the Pharos Project radio telescope and regenerated soon after yet our 10th Doctor can fall from a spacecraft and survive. Boggles ones mind doesn’t it?
I will say that this is the longest regeneration I’ve had the pleasure of seeing and believe me I’ve seen every single one since the beginning of time. One wonders if it was the 10th saying good bye to all those characters or was it David.
On a word of the goodbyes….
Ranting is a foot about Mickey and Martha and my two cents is I do somewhat like the idea. It’s kinda cute if nothing else. I didn’t like his farewell to Rose but I guess with her world being sealed off it was the best he could do really. I guess I was just hoping we’d see Rose in her happily ever after with perhaps a baby on her hip….tis the romantic in me. One thing that choose to bother me was his good bye to Joan Redfern’s granddaughter. Jack, Mickey, Rose, etc…all these people had a very special set point in time with the Doctor and a relationship however Joan Redfern wasn’t a part of the Doctor’s life but more a part of John Smith’s. Of course the argument will arise that John and Doctor are indeed the same person, yes true, but John was the one who had the relationship with Joan not the Doctor. I’m not sure what it is I am getting at but I did feel that his goodbye to Joan or in this case Joan’s next of kin was a bit odd. If they wanted to throw her in they should have also went right ahead and thrown in Madame de Pompadour as well or even Astrid Peth, or just anyone really from his past adventures that he had some base relationship with. But than perhaps it was simply his way of saying good bye to what would never be, what he could never have…….a real life.
And finally The Woman aka Claire Bloom. I do not believe Claire Bloom is Romana. Now that would be just silly. I can rant and speculate all day about the mystery that surrounds The Woman but I will simply say I do not think she is Romana. That for me, is simply the fandom, wanting it to be so. I am very much a part of that fandom but I simply choose to believe she isn’t Romana, doesn’t make sense to me if she was.
I won’t mention the race of Time Lords return or the Master…if I do we might be here all day.
I’ll leave you with a brief note about the 11th.
He looks bloody brilliant doesn’t he? What was that 1 minute of his presence on the screen? Two minutes? Perhaps the 11th won’t be as bad as I was thinking. Perhaps he’ll be reborn with a lighter heart, the 10th was becoming tired and dark of soul, perhaps the 11th will bring back more of the fun side of the Doctor. My belief is the 11th will be much like the 10th but a bit more hyper in everything he does. The Doctor on a sugar rush.
And hey…he’s still not ginger.
I’ll leave you on the note of however you viewed The End of Time I hope it was a good one and with the promise that the 11th will somehow come through for us just as all generations have come through before him.� That’s the beauty of the Doctor isn’t it?�� He’s the same but new….
And that my friends is how time ended for me.
Today I have lots of comments to get through, plenty of rubbish piling up my desk to work on, also all contest posts will be closed off so the winners will be chosen late, late tonight and alerted via e-mail. Plenty to do today! I have new makeup related posts, not containing geek bits never you worry, that will be up shortly.
I hope you all had a very, very Happy New Year and are looking forward to new beginnings. Thank you all for visiting me daily, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your readership.
Feel free to babble about Who, the New Year, or what makeup you recently hauled. I’m listening, as always.