Doctor Who: Utopia

[chicken]

How good was that?



Squeeeeeeeee!!

I have to watch the Jack/Ten chat again, I feel as if I didn't really absorb it all.

In fact, what the heck, how about the whole episode?

The idea of Jack watching Rose grow up made me teary. I guess this living through the entire 20th century thing kind of explains why he's so closed up around the Torchwood team. Same reason the Doctor doesn't really open up to people. They just grow old and die and you just keep on living.

The whole, "you're prejudiced because I'm immortal, too" was quite amusing and cheeky. Kind of like Henry and Vicky in the Tanya Huff novels. (Maybe Jack wouldn't have said it if he knew about The Master, though!)

My favorite part was Martha and Jack sort of bonding together, all, "oh well, she was BLOND, well then!"

Jacobi->Simm == awesome.

Comments

[keever.livejournal.com]

It was the good that is so, so very.

::goes off to rewatch::

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

All the arc content was great to see, and the stuff about Jack, Rose, etc.; some elements of Torchwood were retroactively justified.

But some hours after seeing it, I don't think it really bears much thinking about as a story on its own. What was all that hokum about the radiation-filled room about besides giving Jack something to do? What about all those poor people on the big spaceship? Is there any hope for them at all? Did the thing even go on its way or did it just explode or something? What is the deal with the Futurekind anyway? It's quite possible that I missed something, but the episode seems to completely forget about them all as soon as the big, big reveal happens.

It's a pity, because I found the initial setup affecting in sort of a Peter Davison-era way, reminiscent of "Terminus" and "Frontios" and some other stories.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

Yes, I didn't like how very "means to an end" this whole plot was.

I do think the thing got on its way, and I do think it will leave our three adventurers behind.

I never saw any of the Davison-era episodes (it was always Tom Baker all the way), pity. I'll have to locate some. I did like him in All Creatures Great & Small.

Dark

[murraytodd.livejournal.com]

Despite the Doctor's constant cheers on how wonderful and indomitable the Human Race is, as we see their failures and successes spanning orders-of-magnitude farther into the future than any previous Dr. Who writer ever dared consider, I'm really taken by how dark the show is.

Russell T. Davies was brilliant at creating the Time War and the Last of the Time Lords theme. I can't remember the exact quote, but during the Cybermen episode when they first found themselves in that alternate dimension and the Doctor said, "Now that the Time Lords are gone the whole Universe has become a little bit harder/meaner/less-forgiving." (I really need to find that quote.)

This last episode, seeing the death of the universe (in the anticlimactic "all the stars just burned out" way) and the Doctor's surprisingly callous, nay--chilly--reaction to Jack... it's just fills my heart with a chill. And I can't help but wonder if this is Art reflecting the feelings of the day--with the entire Middle East imploding, the unprecedented corruption of government, health care collapse, etc...

Tom Baker as Doctor Who reflected an era of hope and excitement at the possibility of the future and technology. And I won't say that the late-70's/early-80's were without difficulty, but we saw the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain, the explosion of the Computer Era, etc. (The original Star Wars movies, etc.)

I dunno. All I can say is, that last episode--for me--was dark, dark, dark.

Re: Dark

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

This episode was wonderfully dark -- I think Russell does a great job of walking that knife's edge between optimism and darkness. Sort of a hopeful cynicism, paradox and irony.

Of course, the Doctor's callousness as shown in the previous ark ('Human Nature' and 'The Family of Blood') is very interesting as well. Very interesting that he ran away from The Family in order to spare them his own callousness (and then had to visit it upon them in the end, anyway).

He's well aware of his own nature, and probably quite aware of how thin a tissue of choice, civility, and personality separates his own behavior from that of The Master.