Dr. Who Finale

[shipperx]

I haven't had a chance to look around, but I'm sure there's been bitching about the finale.  Why?  Because fandoms bitch.  I'm sure the Rose Ship Haters, hated the finale and I'm sure the Rose/Ten shippers feel they got some sort of weird compromise.

Myself, I think the Rose/Ten shippers got as close to a happy ending that Doctor Who could hand to them.  Really, there's practically no difference between the final Rose/Ten situation than the Aeryn/2 Johns situation on Farscape (other than Farscape explored the complications over an extended period of time.)  Maybe it's having dealt with Farscape's exploration of 2 Johns that makes me easily accept the Rose/Ten situation, but I thought it was a reasonable compromise for Who to make.  I thought it a sweet gesture to the Rose/Ten fans.

Oh, and it's a really big sacrifice for Ten to make.  Think about it.  He wasn't alone any more.  But he gives that part of himself to Rose.  That's a pretty huge gesture.

On other subjects:  I've grown to love Mickey dearly and think he's grown a hell of a lot.  I hope he does end up working with Capt. Jack.

And finally:  Donna!  Noooo!  Sniffle.  Sniffle. Sob.  Poor, poor Donna.  It breaks my heart. That was a horribly tragic thing to happen to her, and throughout this season I grew to love Donna greatly.  Donna rocked and I almost have an itch to write Donna fic.  Hope she finds another Library Guy (or somehow finds actual Library Guy again). Donna has earned Favorite New!Who companion status for me. 

ETA:
Having read around a bit. Yes, I think Ten is a judgey control freak on many levels and it doesn't play well for me that he's so judgemental of killing off the Daleks.  Dude, when a group is trying to destroy the multiverse, you beat them -- however necessary.  It sucks?  Sure, but to pull out old school Star Trek, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.  And on a multi-verse level, one race of Daleks is the 'few' in this equation.  I support both Jack's and Martha's threats to blow up the earth.  Need of the many.  (Though I think Martha has been pushed into Mary Sue status and it's annoying me.  I had rather liked Martha, but in some defensive posture because of Rose fans being defensive about her or something they've made Martha preternaturally competent at everything and it's dehumanized her).  So Ten and his "how dare the humans dare to threaten to solve something" (which, by the way, he had no answer for) annoyed as did Ten judging 10.5.  Look, Ten, it's all well and good to stand on your principles here, but quite frankly, I don't think 10.5 was wrong.  I'm just sayin'

And yes, I'm a bloodthirsty human who has grown annoyed with Daleks as a go-to villain, so there. (It's the "Exterminate!" thing.  Even if one were to overlook their tendency towards megalomania and genocide, those grating voices deserve extinction.  M'kay?)

Though I still enjoyed CrazyAss Dru Dalek (as in the crazy Dalek reminded me of Drusilla). But, I do hope this is the last of the Daleks for a very, very long time. (come on. We know the critters come back after every time they've been 'destroyed').

Oh and having seen a few discussions of Ten= Buffy.  Ten = Angel.   Rose=Angel.  Martha=Spike.   Etc.  Let me throw out one other permutation.  While, on general principle I don't like to draw parallels between the Buffyverse characters and characters in other fandoms (because that only leads to trouble and the parallels are never true parallels anyway).  I will put forward that Donna = Spike.  (Hee!).  Donna was snarky and underestimated. She saved the universe but will never feel particularly important in it... and that sense of never being 'enough' plays heavily into my view of Spike the UnSpecial (but in a rather human way special) Unlikely Hero. 

Though, in seriousness, I don't consider any Whoverse character a parallel of Buffyverse characters.  It's just if you're going to draw parallels, I'm going to draw them between characters I love.  :)

Comments

[sueworld2003.livejournal.com]

I for one thought that there was some nice stuff in there, but on the whole I didn't think much of it really.

I also thought it threw into deep relief how little Rose had developed emotionally as a character. Even at the very end she still had that 'But it's all about meeee!' air about her.

As writing goes I think RTD's 'Midnight' was a tighter piece of work.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I was okay with Rose. Yeah, it did annoy me a little that she had her "but I was important first" moments, but it was believable for me emotionally and a character flaw for me and that makes her only human.

I'm a bit over the Daleks though, so I wasn't at all sorry to see them exterminated.

[pfeifferpack.livejournal.com]

I still think we'll be seeing Donna again. They sure focused the camera on that ring (wasn't it the one taken from the Master on his funeral byre???) Methinks there is more to her tale yet to be told.

Yes the solution to the Rose love situation was bittersweet but perfect as they could make it. She got the human Doctor who could love her fully without betraying his "calling". Rose got her Doctor but the Doctor hath not his Rose....just the sadness of love lost even if to his alter ego.

Surely there will be whining and wank as in all good fandoms.

I, too, love Mickey and think he'll be perfect if moved to Torchwood. We'll likely see a jealous Ianto in the first moments though....HE doesn't have a cute nickname from the Captain!

Kathleen

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I hope we do. I want her to have a...well, a happy ending isn't necessary, but a happier one would certainly be welcome.

And I do think Mickey would be a great addition to Capt. Jack's team.

[sp23.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see Mickey on Torchwood. Martha, not so much. Though I don't hate her, I don't overly love her either. But, if they do put her on there for the truncated season, I'll deal as long as I still have my lovely Gwen. :-)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I actually liked Martha a great deal throughout the bulk of her season (though her Doctor crush became way annoying). What's actually slowly been killing my Martha affection was how Mary Sue-ish she's become since she became the Legenday Martha. Look! She's a brilliant doctor, savior of the earth, military bigwig, and all around awesome human being! In a weird way, looking back, her rather pathetic fixation on The Doctor was humanizing. I just keep feeling that in compensation to the crap she had to take for being After!Rose she's been turned into a MarySue.

Of the companions in New!Who I think I've grown to love Donna the most, which is why what happened to her moved me the most.

[sp23.livejournal.com]

I agree with you on both counts. Super!Martha is a bit annoying.

I think why I came to really like Donna is that she looked at everything the Doctor showed her with wide, amazed eyes, and then drove the Doctor on to do better than he would on his own. *And* there was no annoying romance. She cared for him a great deal, but not in the OMG!OTP kind of way. It was refreshing. :)

And the reason I liked the last bit, although I'm sorry that Donna lost her time with the Doctor, it opens up all those lovely Angst!Doctor possibilities for the new guy to play with. And without Donna there to set the Doctor straight, he can wallow in his guilt and misery and be totally EMO to an annoying degree until, maybe, they somehow regenerate Donna's memories without killing her and she can slap the Doctor upside the head for all of us. ;-)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Hee! Donna's tendency to annoy and not be in love with The Doctor is what made me love her all the more. That and she functioned on her own initiative. I want her to have a happier fate.

[sp23.livejournal.com]

That is the sad part for Donna. While she was driving the Doctor to be better, she, herself, was evolving into this amazingly strong, clever woman. Now she's back to being a brash, over-loud, "only a temp" and, yeah, that's really sad. I, too, hope that somehow, someway, she once again becomes the woman she was.

If you see any really good Donna fic out there showing her post-Doctor, give me a heads up, okay? I'd read that even though I don't normally read Doctor Who fic.

[queenofattolia.livejournal.com]

The only reason I put forth the Buffyverse/Whoverse parallels is because it's well known that RTD is a massive Buffy fan, and I've been seeing echoes of it all through the Ten series (not in Nine's though, oddly enough). It's as if something switched on in his mind when Tennant became the Doctor: "Oooh, now here's one who could be my Buffy - no, my Angel - no, my Buffy! My Angel! My Buffy!" Etc.

Of course, this could just be my massive unresolved Buffy issues crowding around to drive me insane again. I dunno.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Oh I do think RTD is heavily BtVS influenced. The whole season is set up similiarly. I just try not to see parallels in characters because it brings back old, unresolved frustrations. :)

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

Re: Donna = Spike - and after their "demise", they both had shiny jewels. Spike's played a part in his future - will Donna's??

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Hee! I'm all for it. Donna deserves her own comic!

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

I was all filled with squee over most of the episode until the end, and that scotched the whole thing for me. I've been annoyingly depressed about it for two days now. Rose got a pale duplicate of the man she fell in love with and Donna got... nothing. Worse than nothing. All she did, all she experienced, everything she saw and touched and knew -- gone. All that personal growth that made her into the awesome character she became and she's reduced to the sad, "I'm not worthy" temp from Chiswick she was at the start. I hope they do bring her back, and in a kick-ass way that she deserves. I, too, came closer than I ever have to writing Dr. Who fanfic (I even dreamed about Dr. Who last night).

I need to relax and stop taking television so seriously... *deep breath*

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Donna's fate is a horrible one, and one I want to see her written out of... I guess that's my sudden urge for fanfic.

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

Uh huh.