Into the Dalek
Sep. 3rd, 2014 06:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
llywelaI don't want to say too much about this episode. I found it a bit of a step backward after Deep Breath, messier and more incoherent a la series 7 and I struggled to get past the logic gap at the centre of the episode: what the hell did they think they were going to achieve? It was so glaringly obvious that if the Dalek's malfunction was causing its perceived morality, then repairing that malfunction was going to reverse the 'morality', so what was the point?
But anyway, all that was mostly backdrop for something of a rehashed story about the Doctor's inner darkness - I traced influences from at least half a dozen previous adventures, both modern and classic. Typical nuWho heavy-handed pseudo morality, I thought - the false equivalence with the Daleks (and other enemies) has been drawn many times before and I've never really bought it. Over 50 years of the show we've seen or heard of the Daleks enslaving entire galaxies and slaughtering billions; I am never going to believe that the Doctor is 'just as bad as they are' for wanting to stop them. Clara was right back to annoying me again - she always thinks she knows best; I might not mind so much if this was portrayed as a character flaw rather than her always being played as right and perfect, I don't often call a character Mary-Sue but Clara edges that way, for me. She's still written more as an untouchable ideal than a person.
One of the lines that stood out most strongly and seems to have caused the most stir in fandom was the Doctor's rejection of Journey Blue on the grounds that she is a soldier. It's a shame, because the character and actress had great potential and might have tempered the excesses of writing that go into Clara, but what it drove home most strongly for me was the difference between the character of the Doctor in the classic series and the character of the Doctor in the modern series.
The Doctor has always had an uneasy relationship with the military. That's been true through all his regenerations. But he has worked alongside the military many times and has had a large number of military/warriorly-minded companions. He spent years of his life at UNIT, forged a wonderful friendship with the Brigadier despite their manifold differences and was fond of the other soldiers there, such as Benton and Mike Yates. He took Navy doctor Harry with him as a companion in the TARDIS - although I've always wondered if it was significant that of all the officers he worked with and was friends with at UNIT, it was the medical officer, trained but technically a non-combatant, that he took for a spin in the TARDIS. Steven Taylor was a space pilot who'd fought in a war. Ian Chesterton would have done national service in one or other of the forces - most likely the army. Sara Kingdom was a space security agent, a soldier. Ben Jackson was in the Navy. Jamie McCrimmon was a soldier from a bloody 18th century war. Leela was a warrior. Ace was a fighter. The Doctor rejected none of these people on the basis of being soldiers. He saw them instead as individuals and loved them all for who they were.
So what's changed? The portrayal of the Doctor has changed. In the classic series, the Doctor was a positive, optimistic character, a scientist and explorer. He had an uneasy relationship with the military but was quite happy to befriend soldiers and warriors because he could provide a tempering influence on them, encourage them to look for peaceful solutions where possible - science leads, as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart told his daughter Kate.
In the modern series, all that has changed. The character of the Doctor has become a broken, angst-soaked figure constantly battling his own inner darkness who needs the tempering influence of a non-martial human at his side to hold him back, or whatever, showing him a better way - the companion is now filling the role for the Doctor that the Doctor once filled for other people.
Browsing around the fandom on forums and Tumblr, I can nearly always tell when a person only knows the Doctor of the modern era, just by the way they talk about him - and that's why. It's a completely different presentation and perception of the character, completely different. And for those who know the classic Doctors well, it can be quite jarring!
But anyway, all that was mostly backdrop for something of a rehashed story about the Doctor's inner darkness - I traced influences from at least half a dozen previous adventures, both modern and classic. Typical nuWho heavy-handed pseudo morality, I thought - the false equivalence with the Daleks (and other enemies) has been drawn many times before and I've never really bought it. Over 50 years of the show we've seen or heard of the Daleks enslaving entire galaxies and slaughtering billions; I am never going to believe that the Doctor is 'just as bad as they are' for wanting to stop them. Clara was right back to annoying me again - she always thinks she knows best; I might not mind so much if this was portrayed as a character flaw rather than her always being played as right and perfect, I don't often call a character Mary-Sue but Clara edges that way, for me. She's still written more as an untouchable ideal than a person.
One of the lines that stood out most strongly and seems to have caused the most stir in fandom was the Doctor's rejection of Journey Blue on the grounds that she is a soldier. It's a shame, because the character and actress had great potential and might have tempered the excesses of writing that go into Clara, but what it drove home most strongly for me was the difference between the character of the Doctor in the classic series and the character of the Doctor in the modern series.
The Doctor has always had an uneasy relationship with the military. That's been true through all his regenerations. But he has worked alongside the military many times and has had a large number of military/warriorly-minded companions. He spent years of his life at UNIT, forged a wonderful friendship with the Brigadier despite their manifold differences and was fond of the other soldiers there, such as Benton and Mike Yates. He took Navy doctor Harry with him as a companion in the TARDIS - although I've always wondered if it was significant that of all the officers he worked with and was friends with at UNIT, it was the medical officer, trained but technically a non-combatant, that he took for a spin in the TARDIS. Steven Taylor was a space pilot who'd fought in a war. Ian Chesterton would have done national service in one or other of the forces - most likely the army. Sara Kingdom was a space security agent, a soldier. Ben Jackson was in the Navy. Jamie McCrimmon was a soldier from a bloody 18th century war. Leela was a warrior. Ace was a fighter. The Doctor rejected none of these people on the basis of being soldiers. He saw them instead as individuals and loved them all for who they were.
So what's changed? The portrayal of the Doctor has changed. In the classic series, the Doctor was a positive, optimistic character, a scientist and explorer. He had an uneasy relationship with the military but was quite happy to befriend soldiers and warriors because he could provide a tempering influence on them, encourage them to look for peaceful solutions where possible - science leads, as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart told his daughter Kate.
In the modern series, all that has changed. The character of the Doctor has become a broken, angst-soaked figure constantly battling his own inner darkness who needs the tempering influence of a non-martial human at his side to hold him back, or whatever, showing him a better way - the companion is now filling the role for the Doctor that the Doctor once filled for other people.
Browsing around the fandom on forums and Tumblr, I can nearly always tell when a person only knows the Doctor of the modern era, just by the way they talk about him - and that's why. It's a completely different presentation and perception of the character, completely different. And for those who know the classic Doctors well, it can be quite jarring!
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Date: 2014-09-03 07:52 am (UTC)That's my reaction in a nutshell. I really enjoyed Journey Blue, I was hoping her story would go on. I also agree about Clara, I liked her initially, then grew to like her even more but her character seems to have regressed.
I do like Capaldi in the role.
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Date: 2014-09-03 08:20 am (UTC)I'm enjoying Capaldi's performance, though, if not always the writing for him.
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Date: 2014-09-03 09:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-09-04 05:27 am (UTC)I hate to say it, 'cause I know you don't fancy the ancientness of it, but I suspect you'd like the classic Doctors much better, as characters (you may not like the storytelling or the style or the production values, but you'd appreciate the personalities a whole lot more). Like I said above, there is a massive divide between the classic and the modern Doctors. It's one of the things I've struggled with most since the show returned, especially since going back to rewatch the classic series. Easy to say 'oh, the Time War changed him', but it's harder to accept that change when you know who he was before. It's just a cheap way of wringing some emotion out of the character and his adventures - and repetitive, as so many character arcs tend to be. Why change a 'winning' formula?
And the thing is, the 'lesson' that this nuWho Doctor keeps being taught over and over by his companions is a lesson he already learned way back in his 1st incarnation when he first took human companions. And he learned it a lot faster then! It only took a handful of adventures for him to develop the principles of compassion and heroism he lived by thereafter, through so many regenerations. So to see him consistently presented as this broken figure battling inner darkness just feels weird to me. That isn't the Doctor. It worked in Dalek as a one-off, but it's become an ongoing thing since then, for years and years and it just doesn't ring true to me. I hate seeing a character's flaws exaggerated just so they can be taught a lesson, and that's what the false equivalence with the Daleks strikes me as.
Danny Pink was cute! I've got my fingers crossed for him. I still don't like Clara, so I need someone!