Doctor Who - Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS

[kiki_eng]

So this episode felt really, really old school, which is fine in itself - old school is fine - except it was really boring, like a revamp that doesn't revamp anything. There were new things in this episode, but I have liked every other TARDIS in danger/walkabouts in the TARDIS episode that I have seen more than I liked this one. I really disliked this one.

The thing about the TARDIS is that it is amazing. The TARDIS is the library you dreamed up when you were a kid, with the sliding ladders and spiral staircases and comfy chairs, and the treehouse that you desperately wanted and the underground tunnel to your best friend's house. I'm usually disappointed by the views that we get of the TARDIS outside of the exterior and the console room. The one notable exception to that that's standing out in my memory is Ten going through that closet. I hate the kind of white-grey-metal thing that happens because that basically feels like every other ship in the universe and she's not, so that design choice really bugs me. I'm okay with the hive-like thing that happens but I really wish there was a bit more of an organic feel to it; I imprinted on Nine and Ten's console room, basically, and that's what I think the TARDIS should be. I think the TARDIS is beautiful and this, with the exception of that tree, really wasn't.

I think there's a thing where the TARDIS is a reflection of the Doctor. There's a reason that they redid the console room for the new series and then redid it for Eleven. Eleven's got this squarish steampunkish 1980s vibe where the previous room was much more like a living thing. I think it makes sense that Eleven's TARDIS is more mechanically than biologically inclined, but it feels like the worst, stodgiest, institutional architecture. ...which is maybe appropriate for this Doctor! I feel, though, that a lot of what's gone on during the Moffat era has been establishing the TARDIS is an entity - she stole a time lord - so it feels wrong, a bit, that we can't really see her in the architecture of the place, in the halls.

I really disliked the reset button in this episode. I'm really tired of the reset button. I want there to be consequences, for things to happen, for characters to move forward.

I also want there to be some acknowledgement of how completely terrifying this Doctor is. I don't feel like that's happening in the show anymore or with the Doctor, even. I feel like this Doctor kills people and there's nothing, nothing. They trapped people in a room to burn this episode and that was fine, because they didn't look human anymore?!?!?! It felt a bit like The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People where they established that these were people, equal, and then didn't treat them that way at all. I just don't feel like the correct response to the revelation that these people are you is to kill them off.

I feel like there's a lot of the dark, a lot of The Master in this Doctor. Ten was "No second chances. I'm that sort of a man." and I feel like Eleven is no first chances. At the beginning of the episode, when he started the countdown sequence he sounded like The Master, sounded like a villain, and then he called Clara "salvage", which is great; it's awesome that he wants to save her, it is considerably less awesome that he's using a word that generally refers to property up for grab, and that the reason he's traveling with her basically seems to be that she's a puzzle-box he can't figure out how to open, a toy. I find Jenna Louise Coleman's doll-face a little discomforting because I am intensely worried that the treatment of her character is going to be in line with that shape.

I'm also side-eyeing the casting of the van Baalen's a little bit in this episode, because they were black criminals, and that's one of those things, like the Asian scientist or the disabled villain.

I found this episode really dissatisfying because nothing happened, except the one brother was slightly nicer to the one on whom a massive mind-fuck had been performed. I don't really feel that that was the beginning of some kind of redemption, though; it felt insignificant, especially in the face of what had been done, which seems to be how Who operates in general, these days.

It seems to lack the kind of moral grounding that the Doctor Who of Nine and Ten had, which is a big part of why I'm looking at this Doctor and thinking about The Master. The Master is all of the terrible things that The Doctor has the capacity to be, all of the dark things that he could do, and I think we're seeing The Doctor doing some of those things. I think that, when they traveled together, some of the things that The Doctor is doing now, some of the ways in which he's treating people are things that The Master would have done, things that the Doctor might have looked back on and seen as warning signs. I think that The Doctor is leaning that way now, but that's not a thing that seems to be being acknowledged by the show, that seems likely to be acknowledged. I mean, I am sure that Moffat wants to play with The Master. I think he is way too iconic a character and too much a part of old Who for Moffat not to be interested in bringing him back, in telling stories with him, but I don't think that the kind of skeevy behaviours that The Doctor's exhibiting are part of that arc; I don't think that the writers, the showrunner, are aware of that skeeviness.

Comments

[calvinahobbes]

Before the episode aired I literally said, "Oh I hope I get to see the swimming pool! And the library!" But then when we actually saw those things, it felt so disappointing? And I think that did have something to do with the way those rooms didn't really fit in with the over-all esthetic of Moffat's TARDIS lay-out? I very much agree that it looks very metallic and mechanic, and I also keep expecting something more organic. I don't even think it looks very Steampunk? I would actually probably love it if it looked way more Steampunk - ala Ten's closet.

I completely agree about the Reset button. I wasn't at all surprised it would go that way (I've learned to expect as much, basically), but, leaving Clara and character development out of it, it still negates all the emotions I as a viewer was expected to have during the episode, and that sucks too.

I think the Doctor is terrifying! It didn't actually make him any less so that he was "only joking" or whatever, because it's still really signficant emotional manipulation and psychological abuse. I also really disliked his dumb face at Clara's questioning him setting the TARDIS on "Easy" for her. Not to mention how disturbing it was to have Clara actually branded and in pain, just to serve as the Doctor's message board.

And yeah, it struck me as kind of suspect that we finally get three POC on a random space ship and they just HAPPEN to be related? Because they all look alike? And then yeah, criminals who make their brother into an android against his will and without his knowledge? Not super good characters!

[kiki_eng]

Yeah, as much as I want to see all of the TARDIS ever I think there's a lot of value in not showing those things, in letting things stay imagined. I don't think that what we saw was really consistent with the console room. Steampunk would have been good, yes, and there would have been that consistency with the human TARDIS. What we saw sort of feels like the most terrible bits of Eleven's soul - so institutional, so mechanical, so bare.

Yeah, I'm right with you there. "I was only manipulating you!" does not make it much better, really. It's a little bit funny lined up with the brothers' manipulation, too.

[mergatrude]

Yes, yes, yes, to the last paragraph. I mean, also to the others, but this one especially. I agree that there never seems to be consequences.

I am also worried about Clara The Puzzle because I feel like she's more of a thing than a person, and because I don't feel like the Doctor actually takes her seriously, in and of herself, only as what she might represent.

[kiki_eng]

*nods* I think that's part of what's making the mysterious Clara thing so troubling to me, just how much of the Doctor's focus seems to be on that mystery and not her as a person. I mean, we've had the mystery thing with Amy and River before, but there's a different balance happening here with his focus. She seems younger, too? It's worrying.