Doctor Who: The Beast Below
Apr. 10th, 2010 10:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skywaterblueHm. This episode has a lot going on in it, and I'm not really sure it all congeals together into a whole. People are going to have a lot of fun tearing it up into itty bits for essays and meta, though. People a lot like me!
The thing I noticed immediately in the trailer is that the little girl from the school is wearing a red hoodie and a white floofy dress. As was little Amy herself. Liz Ten wears a red cloak too. I think it's fair to say that the episode wants us to see the little girl as like-Amy, in the same way it wants you to view Star Whale as a Doctor metaphor. (I'm not sure how that works since the audience knows that the Doctor left his people prior to being the Lonely Angel What Suffers For Mankind Which Is Not At All A Bit Like Jesus. Well, some portion does.)
As much as many people have commented on the political theme - protesters getting eaten and the vast populace choosing to forget that which keeps their society afloat, literally, I think people might be missing the wider point: it's a bit more about Amy's agency, isn't it? And in that, reaction by Moffat to uh, previous companions.
Amy chooses to forget, can't decide if she wants to be married and she presses the buttons to end the world. And she can't cheat her own future by looking it up, either. (I like to think it's because she hasn't chosen an answer yet so it is quantum undecided.) Anyway, she makes the decisions - she chooses for Liz Ten and the Doctor at the same time. The way that Liz Ten chooses to investigate, and then do it all over again, the same way it turns out that the Star Whale CHOSE to help humanity, which is the same choice the Doctor makes. I like it. I hope Moffat doesn't fuck it up.
My favorite thing about Amy, aside from her complete williness to lie, is her complete unflappability. Is the Doctor human? No? Big deal. Giant Space Whale Tongue? No screaming there.
The reason it's difficult for me to decide what all this political/agency stuff is about is because it's a big muddle. There's a despotic government but the Queen is good but she's really allowing it to happen. At the heart of it all is a big kindly space whale and we must care a lot if the Doctor lobotomizes it, even though the last version of himself threw people out and lobotomized any old person all the time.
We forget, and then we remember and it is awful, and then we forget again... life, and politics, yeah, they're a bit like that.
It is hard to take Space Whales seriously, though.
Also that water glass ripple thing, such a reference to Spielberg, amirite? Also also, is Liz Ten's mask a little Guy Fawkes-y? Even though only Americans associate the Guy Fawkes mask with rebels skulking about the sewer and trying to take down the government. Being a rebel and the Queen's a bit like being a renegade Time Lord, one suspects.
By the way, the Giant Space Whale all the way down didn't remind me of Terry Pratchett. The legend about the Earth being on giant turtles far predates Discworld. It did remind me a bit of the monster in London Below, though.
Things I Unabashedly Love: Liz Ten! The Doctor shagged Elizabeth the First for LOLS, space whale sick. And no one dies. And Amy's theme is lovely, good on Murray Gold. The bit where she floats outside of the TARDIS is something I have ALWAYS wanted to see since forever: it's so magical.
I would really like to have seen the other draft of this where the themes come together for me. Next week is Daleks and our first non-Moffat story. Brace yourselves.
The thing I noticed immediately in the trailer is that the little girl from the school is wearing a red hoodie and a white floofy dress. As was little Amy herself. Liz Ten wears a red cloak too. I think it's fair to say that the episode wants us to see the little girl as like-Amy, in the same way it wants you to view Star Whale as a Doctor metaphor. (I'm not sure how that works since the audience knows that the Doctor left his people prior to being the Lonely Angel What Suffers For Mankind Which Is Not At All A Bit Like Jesus. Well, some portion does.)
As much as many people have commented on the political theme - protesters getting eaten and the vast populace choosing to forget that which keeps their society afloat, literally, I think people might be missing the wider point: it's a bit more about Amy's agency, isn't it? And in that, reaction by Moffat to uh, previous companions.
Amy chooses to forget, can't decide if she wants to be married and she presses the buttons to end the world. And she can't cheat her own future by looking it up, either. (I like to think it's because she hasn't chosen an answer yet so it is quantum undecided.) Anyway, she makes the decisions - she chooses for Liz Ten and the Doctor at the same time. The way that Liz Ten chooses to investigate, and then do it all over again, the same way it turns out that the Star Whale CHOSE to help humanity, which is the same choice the Doctor makes. I like it. I hope Moffat doesn't fuck it up.
My favorite thing about Amy, aside from her complete williness to lie, is her complete unflappability. Is the Doctor human? No? Big deal. Giant Space Whale Tongue? No screaming there.
The reason it's difficult for me to decide what all this political/agency stuff is about is because it's a big muddle. There's a despotic government but the Queen is good but she's really allowing it to happen. At the heart of it all is a big kindly space whale and we must care a lot if the Doctor lobotomizes it, even though the last version of himself threw people out and lobotomized any old person all the time.
We forget, and then we remember and it is awful, and then we forget again... life, and politics, yeah, they're a bit like that.
It is hard to take Space Whales seriously, though.
Also that water glass ripple thing, such a reference to Spielberg, amirite? Also also, is Liz Ten's mask a little Guy Fawkes-y? Even though only Americans associate the Guy Fawkes mask with rebels skulking about the sewer and trying to take down the government. Being a rebel and the Queen's a bit like being a renegade Time Lord, one suspects.
By the way, the Giant Space Whale all the way down didn't remind me of Terry Pratchett. The legend about the Earth being on giant turtles far predates Discworld. It did remind me a bit of the monster in London Below, though.
Things I Unabashedly Love: Liz Ten! The Doctor shagged Elizabeth the First for LOLS, space whale sick. And no one dies. And Amy's theme is lovely, good on Murray Gold. The bit where she floats outside of the TARDIS is something I have ALWAYS wanted to see since forever: it's so magical.
I would really like to have seen the other draft of this where the themes come together for me. Next week is Daleks and our first non-Moffat story. Brace yourselves.
