Further Thoughts on Utopia.
Jun. 18th, 2007 10:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fangrrl_squeesOkay, now that I've gotten the squee out of my system, maybe I can be a bit more rational about it. Besides, I watched Daleks in Manhattan immediately afterwards and, oh boy, did that ever take the edge off the squeeing - more on that, later.
The first part of the story creaked a bit under the weight of contrivance, imho, and dragged in spots. TheReavers Futurekin might as well have had a sign over their heads saying "We're here to justify the Jack/Doctor convo 30 minutes in and are otherwise completely pointless.", although one must give them serious 1980s kudos for the Beyond Thunderdome revival look they had going on.
I've read some crit grumbling about how The Master is a wee bit over the top. I agree that he is but I don't disagree with the decision to play it that way. He's The Master, for Crissakes - a pantomime villain if ever there was one. He's not subtle, he's not terribly discreet and, oh yeah, as a panto villain, he can say things like "...and shot by a girl, of all things." Granted, I'd rather that he didn't, but if you're going to have a character with a bit of old-fashioned chauvanism in his makeup, well... see "panto", above. I take such declarations a damn sight less seriously than I would than if they were falling out of, say, Jack Harkness' mouth. The Master should be a bit OTT, as only OTT-types are going to be seized with bright ideas for taking over the universe, etc.
Martha was a bit stroppy and had no useful contributions whatsoever. I hope this is merely a passing phase. I also hope that she's finally going to be allowed to get over the long-distance-resentment of Rose.
Actually, I'm a bit narked about the whole Martha is head over heels for the Doctor thing because I think it's letting RTD continue exercising his Mary-Sue-ness and I got bored of that ages ago. The Doctor's managed to have tons of non-romantically-entangled company in the past1 - could we have some in the future, please? Besides, I'm getting tired of Martha's longing glances and sotto voce complaints.
Yay for (almost) emo-free Jack! Makes you wonder just how bloody depressed he is with the Torchwood bunch, but that's a thought I'm going to save exploring for rpg!Jack.
Correct me if I'm wrong but in amongst the flurry of apologies that the Doctor's been issuing, of late, he's rather failed to say anything of the kind to Jack, has he? He admitted why he fled the scene and why he's having a hard time dealing with Jack's ongoing existence, but no "I'm sorry I left you knee deep in a pile of ash that was once a few hundred human beings." If that's the case, I'm going to have to noodle on that for a while. Granted, the Doctor's more used to the companions leaving him, rather than vice versa - Sarah Jane being the exception and not the rule - and he seems free of any sort of abandonment anxiety, himself, so... *shrugs* as I say, I'm going to need to think about that for a while. Besides, I might not be remembering things clearly, in amongst the squee'ing of last night.
As for the grumbles I've seen about continuity - this is, what, the third time the Doctor has toddled off to the end of the universe? I'm not worried about continuity, myself. RTD et al built themselves a beaut of an out: because of the Time Wars, history is no longer a fixed thing. Just because my history books currently state that Wellington won the Battle of Waterloo doesn't mean that it'll still be true tomorrow. It makes my head hurt and, yes, it's a copout, but I think it's a justifiable way to deal with a show that never, ever, in its life worried about 'canon' or, indeed, even a coherent narrative continuity. So, yeah, maybe Cassandra was the last human at one point - it doesn't mean that's going to remain the truth.
Steampunk is the luv, as usual.
There's a few more thoughts roiling around my noggin, but it's whomptastic at work this week and, dammit, they don't appreciate blogging on company time...
1 - naughty-minded ficcers aside, of course.
The first part of the story creaked a bit under the weight of contrivance, imho, and dragged in spots. The
I've read some crit grumbling about how The Master is a wee bit over the top. I agree that he is but I don't disagree with the decision to play it that way. He's The Master, for Crissakes - a pantomime villain if ever there was one. He's not subtle, he's not terribly discreet and, oh yeah, as a panto villain, he can say things like "...and shot by a girl, of all things." Granted, I'd rather that he didn't, but if you're going to have a character with a bit of old-fashioned chauvanism in his makeup, well... see "panto", above. I take such declarations a damn sight less seriously than I would than if they were falling out of, say, Jack Harkness' mouth. The Master should be a bit OTT, as only OTT-types are going to be seized with bright ideas for taking over the universe, etc.
Martha was a bit stroppy and had no useful contributions whatsoever. I hope this is merely a passing phase. I also hope that she's finally going to be allowed to get over the long-distance-resentment of Rose.
Actually, I'm a bit narked about the whole Martha is head over heels for the Doctor thing because I think it's letting RTD continue exercising his Mary-Sue-ness and I got bored of that ages ago. The Doctor's managed to have tons of non-romantically-entangled company in the past1 - could we have some in the future, please? Besides, I'm getting tired of Martha's longing glances and sotto voce complaints.
Yay for (almost) emo-free Jack! Makes you wonder just how bloody depressed he is with the Torchwood bunch, but that's a thought I'm going to save exploring for rpg!Jack.
Correct me if I'm wrong but in amongst the flurry of apologies that the Doctor's been issuing, of late, he's rather failed to say anything of the kind to Jack, has he? He admitted why he fled the scene and why he's having a hard time dealing with Jack's ongoing existence, but no "I'm sorry I left you knee deep in a pile of ash that was once a few hundred human beings." If that's the case, I'm going to have to noodle on that for a while. Granted, the Doctor's more used to the companions leaving him, rather than vice versa - Sarah Jane being the exception and not the rule - and he seems free of any sort of abandonment anxiety, himself, so... *shrugs* as I say, I'm going to need to think about that for a while. Besides, I might not be remembering things clearly, in amongst the squee'ing of last night.
As for the grumbles I've seen about continuity - this is, what, the third time the Doctor has toddled off to the end of the universe? I'm not worried about continuity, myself. RTD et al built themselves a beaut of an out: because of the Time Wars, history is no longer a fixed thing. Just because my history books currently state that Wellington won the Battle of Waterloo doesn't mean that it'll still be true tomorrow. It makes my head hurt and, yes, it's a copout, but I think it's a justifiable way to deal with a show that never, ever, in its life worried about 'canon' or, indeed, even a coherent narrative continuity. So, yeah, maybe Cassandra was the last human at one point - it doesn't mean that's going to remain the truth.
Steampunk is the luv, as usual.
There's a few more thoughts roiling around my noggin, but it's whomptastic at work this week and, dammit, they don't appreciate blogging on company time...
1 - naughty-minded ficcers aside, of course.
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no subject
Date: 2007-06-18 06:49 pm (UTC)Plus, Cassandra claimed to be the last 'pure' human. The rest of humanity was off interbreeding with compatible species. This doesn't mean there isn't going to be members of that interbred population that still looks human on the outside. The future defination of human could include everyone that looks like a standard human on the exterior.
3000 years in the future, with time travel and aliens, I'd be willing to bet Jack isn't entirely genetically human.