Babble

[icepixie]

Somewhere on the internet, whatever I could say about "School Reunion" has already been said. It's probably been linked to on who_daily as well. However, because I can't keep my mouth shut...

- ITA with everyone who's been saying that the plot was lacking, but it was made up for in the character interactions.

- Still kind of hate Mickey and hope he dies soon, but "Oh my God, I'm the tin dog!" had me laughing out loud. It may have been schadenfreude.

- David Tennant is beautiful. And a fantastic actor.

- I haven't seen any Sarah-Jane episodes, but wasn't she some kind of ambitious feminist? It struck me as a little weird that she would pine away for thirty years for the Doctor, given what little I know about her; seems to me she would've "had a life of [her] own" already. That doesn't mean I like the "well, there was this one guy...I traveled with him for a while. But he was a tough act to follow" line any less, though, because it's wonderful.

- I've faced the immortal-being-living-way-longer-than-the-puny-humans-they-inevitably-end-up-with thing before. I was a Forever Knight fan, after all, and the Doctor has less than a hundred years on Nick. LaCroix was well over a thousand, IIRC. Plus, y'know, there's Dax from DS9. But this instance of it was done exceptionally well. Having the ability to bring back someone from years past, showing how she's aged while the immortal/alien/whatever hasn't, was certainly helpful. I loved everything about SJ's interaction with the Doctor, and with Rose as well.

I'm not sure if it's my favorite--there are so many to choose from--but certainly what I think of as the most important scene was the one outside the cafe with Rose and the Doctor. It was wonderful. I love that I'm not sure whether to believe the Doctor's "not you," and think that Rose is actually different in some way from the ones who came before, or not. It might have been a lie to make her feel better, after all. Could be.

I've gotten before that Rose and the Doctor aren't going to last (well, unless RTD pulls something very strange when Billie eventually leaves), but this did shed some light on that relationship at a different angle. In my exploration of Old Skool Who, I've become attached to Five/Tegan (oh, shut up; if you know me at all, you know I physically cannot resist that kind of spiteful bickering sort of relationship), Eight/Charley (like whoa), and of course both Nine/Rose and Ten/Rose. However, as you can see even by the structure of that sentence, I've compartmentalized them in my head to a certain extent. There's not really a category for Doctor/any of the girls. This is partially because those are the relationships we've seen onscreen/heard in the audios, naturally, and also because each regeneration of the Doctor is in some ways a different person from the last and of necessity his relationships with his various companions have to change, and what would fly with one incarnation of him won't in another.

But I think this episode did a really good job at showing that it's not that easy to put his relationships with his companions--or even the Doctor himself--into neat little boxes like that. There's too much of the same person in each version of him, too many of the memories from previous incarnations, for it to work like that. And it's certainly made me take a step back and re-evaluate the nature of all three 'ships I'm into, which is a good thing, certainly. I think seeing that the Doctor, even by his tenth incarnation, still cares for Sarah-Jane, companion to his third and fourth selves, adds another layer to the 'ships I do follow, and makes them all the lovelier.

*

Also, one comment about Casanova: Wow, that was a depressing ending. After seeing part one, I had no clue it as going to end like that. Meh! *sniffles*

There were many sniffles this weekend, oh yes.

Comments

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I've been following another comment discussion about Sarah's feminism, and I think the conclusion reached has been that the evidence suggests she hasn't been pining away for thirty years. I sort of agree with this - the fact she's still doing her investigations proves she's pretty damn good at what she does, but she's focusing on the negatives with the Doctor because he really, really doesn't get what he did to her when he left her behind and didn't come back. (And if I remember rightly, he was supposed to come back for her; there was no reason why he couldn't at that time.) I can't get behind pining!Sarah, but I can believe that she's almost unconsciously held back from a serious relationship ever since, because whoever she went out with, married, would have to both believe and understand her when she talked about the Doctor. He literally changed and defined her life, and I think it's characteristic that she wouldn't be able to forget him, stop looking over her shoulder for him.

Ah, I really, really like this episode! It's high time the Doctor realised the consequences of what he does when he leaves people behind. And it's interesting, I think, that he hasn't talked about Sarah Jane to Rose, or any of his previous companions, but neither has he talked about his own family or his own children. I guess it all fits in very nicely with his living so long that it's easier to forget.

[icepixie]

I like what you say about how Sarah might have unconsciously held back from serious relationships because people would think her crazy when she talks about her adventures with the Doctor. Yeah, she might well think nothing else would compare.

It was a good episode. :)