DW 28x13: Doomsday (short; part one of perhaps two)

[icepixie]

Um.

...What was that, exactly?

I'm not sure whether I liked that or not. I'm leaning towards being horrified at Rose's fate. I love how I managed to predict it accurately with a combination of two of my suggested endings ("Rose buggers off to the AU with her family" and "Rose joins Torchwood") and yet managed to miss the way it would happen/the emotions it comes wrapped in COMPLETELY.

Great big WTF? to the ending. (And to the music. JAY-ZUS. What crack was Murray Gold on?)

More later, I think.

Comments

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

I can't believe I feel betrayed on Rose's behalf.

[icepixie]

Rose got screwed, for real. Objectification is a bad thing.

I want to cry "Sexism, OMG!" except I think it was actually just sheer ineptitude practiced while trying to go for a Big Emotional Moment.

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

I just.... really wish she'd got to go on her own steam. This way was just... icky.

[icepixie]

Yes, yes, yes.

Or at least we could've seen her working at Torchwood and being kickass? And not crying on a beach in fricking NORWAY with her parents and her quasi-boyfriend? I could've handled a "Well, this SUCKS, but I learned things with the Doctor so I'll go and make something out of my life here now that I'm in another universe" sort of ending. She says she'll join Torchwood, but seeing it would've been nicer.

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

It made me go "WTF?"

[alto2.livejournal.com]

Depending on how you look at it, it was her choice--or the result of her choices. She refused to leave the Doctor, and she chose to go fix the lever, which she couldn't have entirely believed she could hold onto. I can see, though, where she was to the point where she did not really believe anything bad would ever happen to her, because it hadn't yet, hence that smug attitude that was annoying me halfway through the series.

I know that's not the sense you mean, but it was a direct result of the choices she did make. My big question is how the hell Pete knew to pick that moment to come get her--and how he knew he wouldn't end up in the void as a result.

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

I can see, though, where she was to the point where she did not really believe anything bad would ever happen to her, because it hadn't yet, hence that smug attitude that was annoying me halfway through the series.

There is a sense in which Rose gets stranded in the alt!verse because she insulted Queen Victoria. Which is wicked harsh if we're supposed to go there.

I think I am weirded out by the degree to which she seems cut off from her own family and still has no sense of purpose. "She is incomplete" as it were.

[icepixie]

I think I am weirded out by the degree to which she seems cut off from her own family and still has no sense of purpose.

Yes. If we'd seen (instead of just been told in one line) her working for alt!Torchwood, or otherwise finding purpose in her life, rather than wailing away on a beach because she's lost the Doctor and giving every indication that that's basically what she's going to continue to do, it would've been a very different episode--and one I would've enjoyed a lot more.

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

It's like they hurt her to make the Doctor cry.

[icepixie]

And then they made the Doctor cry to make us sad. I wonder if "Audience cries here" was inserted somewhere in the script?

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

It's never been subtle. Woe.

[icepixie]

The way I look at it, the result of Rose's choice to stay with the Doctor and to pull that lever would be getting sucked into the void. Pete magically saving her is a cop-out from Rusty who doesn't want consequences to happen to his Mary Sue.

I would like to read this as the hubris smackdown, but I'm just not in the mood to do the fanwank necessary to see it that way. Argh.

[alto2.livejournal.com]

Yes, I don't understand why/how Pete showed up when he did, and how it is that both of them avoided the void. Makes no sense. Regardless, one way or another, she decided to do what she did, despite the fact that it could have killed her or otherwise left her where she didn't want to be.

What the hell ever happened to the hubris smackdown, anyway? So many things from this series seem to have been introduced or implied and then...never heard from again. Weird. (Or just...lame.)

[icepixie]

What the hell ever happened to the hubris smackdown, anyway? So many things from this series seem to have been introduced or implied and then...never heard from again. Weird. (Or just...lame.)

For serious. Face of Boe, hello?

[alto2.livejournal.com]

Crikey, I forgot about that. You're absolutely right. Gah.

[elflore.livejournal.com]

I...

Rather liked the music.

*Ducks*

Oh come on! I'm a sucker for a big Wagnerian choir behind battle scenes, and all the dramatic stuff at the end... *Shrugs* I want a soundtrack more than ever!

[icepixie]

The Wagnerian opera parts got old after a while, but weren't horribly offensive. The shiny choral bits at the very end were nice.

But the music from when Pete saves Rose to when she meets up with the Doctor on the beach (minutes 36 to 40), with the horrid synthesized beat backing some crazy new age vocals? CRAP. I would've been bawling my eyes out had that been replaced with, like, a melancholy string arrangement or even an unaccompanied voice.

Bah.

(Reply to your other comment coming after I get back from lunch/errands.)